


Wouldn't It Be Nice?

by TeresaChristina



Category: Fleetwood Mac (Band)
Genre: 1960s, F/M, First Meetings, First Time, Horny Teenagers, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Long-Term Relationship(s), Ratings: R, Teen Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23282611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeresaChristina/pseuds/TeresaChristina
Summary: A young Stevie and Lindsey find their way to each other, with a few detours along the way.
Relationships: Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**spring 1966**

"Who on earth is calling us right now?"

The shrill ringing of the phone in the next room startled the family of four who were gathered in the living room. All eyes were focused on the TV for the final episode of the Dick Van Dyke show, and no one could be bothered to get up and risk missing a single moment. After half a dozen rings had passed and it became obvious that the caller wasn't about to hang up, Mrs. Nicks sighed at her unresponsive husband and children and went to answer it herself.

"Don't anyone worry, I've got it," she continued, aware that nobody was listening to her. Stevie certainly wasn't. She was too busy admiring Laura Petrie's outfit, remembering sadly how her mother had refused to buy her capris like Laura's because she said tight pants were unbecoming and impractical since they were against the school dress code.

Her thoughts on the unfairness of life were interrupted when she heard her mother calling her name. "Mom, tell Robin I'll talk to her at school tomorrow."

"It's not Robin, honey, it's a boy," she said, covering the receiver with her hand. "It's not David, either."

Stevie was intrigued enough by the thought of a call from a boy who _wasn't_ her on-again, off-again boyfriend that she got up and went into the kitchen with nary another thought about the TV.

"Whoever he is, tell him you can only talk for ten minutes and then it's bedtime," her mother reminded her.

She cringed, hoping her mystery caller hadn't heard that, and smoothed her hair back nervously before reaching for the phone. "Hello?"

"Uh, hey," said the voice on the other end of the line after a long pause. "This is Lindsey. You know. From the other day."

Her eyes widened as she ducked into the doorway of the pantry, stretching the phone cord as far as it could go in order to get some semblance of privacy. They had instantly hit it off when they had met the previous week, enough so that Stevie had impulsively grabbed his hand and written her number on his palm as she was getting ready to leave, but she didn't actually expect him to call her. "Yeah! Hi."

"Hi," he repeated after an even longer pause, but Stevie was too busy mentally celebrating to notice his stilted conversational style. The consensus among her friends was that giving him her number like that was way too forward, especially after he had mentioned that he had a girlfriend, and she was already thinking ahead to seeing them at school tomorrow and gloating about how they had been so wrong. "Um. I wondered if I, if you..."

This time she picked up on his silence when he trailed off. "Hello? Are you still there?"

"Iwonderedifyouwouldgotopromwithme," he said in a rush, and this time she was the silent one as she tried to figure out what he had just said.

"Oh! Prom!" she said when she finally caught on, cupping her hand over her mouth in case anyone was listening in. Her parents were the hopelessly old-fashioned type, still stuck in the 40s where the 'proper' way to make an invitation was to show up in person and ask them for permission first. "I...uh. See, the thing is, I kinda have a boyfriend."

"Kinda?"

"Well, I mean. I do," she confessed, wondering why he couldn't have called a day and a half earlier when she was still a single woman. Sure, going to the junior prom as a senior might have been a lame thing to do, but she would've said yes to him anyway. It would've been worth the potential grief from her friends just to spend more time with him and besides, everyone knew that the actual dance itself wasn't the point of the evening. When you're parked in a dark car, it didn't really matter if he was an underclassman as long as he was cute- which he definitely was.

He huffed under his breath. "You told me you weren't going steady with anyone."

"I wasn't _then_ ," she said, a little annoyed. Was he implying that she was a liar? "And you told me you had a girlfriend."

"Yeah, she dum- I don't. Have a girlfriend," he stammered.

"Oh. Yeah. My boyfriend and I were broken up but...we're back together now." The disappointment in her voice surprised her, but she was even more surprised to find herself momentarily wondering if she could get away with going to the dance and just not telling David. They went to different schools, so she wouldn't have to worry about running into him...no, she told herself sternly. She wasn't a cheater. And even if she was tempted to cheat, she knew that the teenage gossip pipeline extended far past the walls of any one high school.

So although she had to remain steadfast in her decision, she didn't want to let him go entirely. "Listen, if you want, maybe we could-"

"I can't talk anymore, it's late and I have practice in the morning."

"You're the one who called me!" she pointed out, shaking her head.

"I know. 'm sorry," he mumbled. "Bye."

The dial tone started droning in her ear before she could say anything else, and she frowned as she went to hang up the phone.

"Who was that?" her mother asked, doing a poor job of trying to hide that she had been snooping from inside the kitchen.

Stevie shrugged. "Just some kid from my biology class. We're doing a group project."

"Hmm. About what?"

"Raccoons."

It was a terrible lie and they both knew it, but her mother decided not to press the issue. "It's past bedtime..."

"I know, I know," Stevie said as she headed toward the stairs, grateful for the excuse to leave the room. She didn't think her mom would have really cared much one way or the other if she had told her the truth, but she felt strangely guilty about the conversation she'd just had. Sure, she had made the right choice, but she was surprised by how much she wished she would've done the wrong thing and said yes to him. What was she thinking? Her relationship with David was certainly intermittent, but during the times when they were together, she was a good girlfriend. She loved him. She definitely wasn't a cheater.

She tried to console herself, rationalizing that things wouldn't have gone anywhere with Lindsey anyhow. By the end of the summer she would be a college girl! There was no time to get hung up on some high school boy she'd only spent one evening with, not when her entire future awaited her.


	2. Chapter 2

"Stevie! You'll _never_ guess what happened!"

Stevie was sitting at the desk in her dorm room, half studying and half daydreaming, when her roommate Annie burst through the door. "What is it, Ann?"

"It's the craziest thing. You won't believe it," she promised, but Stevie tried to temper her expectations. Annie had a tendency to be over-excitable, so her big news could be anything from the dining hall serving fishsticks for lunch to the Soviets landing a man on the moon. "So I was just out having coffee with Max, and his roommate dropped by with his new girl. You know, the one you went to high school with."

"Vicky? Yeah," Stevie said, doodling in the margins of her notebook as she waited for this story to get interesting. It could be a while.

"And we were all sitting there talking, right, and then some guy I didn't know came into the shop. He recognized Vicky, I guess they had classes together, so then they started chatting-"

"Ann, I've gotta finish this assignment by 3, so if we could hurry it up..."

"Fine, fine! So I asked this guy, do you know my roommate Stevie, and he said he does!"

"Annie, how is that 'crazy'?" she asked.

"Because he said he's been looking for you!"

"What?" That _was_ a little crazy, but also a little creepy, Stevie thought. Mostly creepy. Probably some ex desperate to get her back. But which one? "Who is he? Did you tell him I have a boyfriend?"

"His name is...oh shoot, I can't remember his name!" Annie made a face, muttering potential names to herself.

"You tell me this whole story and then you can't even remember the most important part?"

"I don't know! But he's a freshman, dark hair, nice eyes...he's on the swim team...anyway, he said you sang together once. That's why he's trying to find you. He's in a band and they're looking for a singer."

"Wait, was his name Lindsey? Lindsey Buckingham?"

"Yes! That's it!" Annie said, clapping her hands together. "So you do know him?"

"Yeah- I mean, kinda. It's like he said, I met him once senior year and he had his guitar out so we sang together for a bit. Then the next week he called to ask me to prom, but I was with David then, so...I never saw him after that."

Annie sat down backwards on her desk chair, nodding at Stevie. "Well, obviously you made an impression because the kid's still thinking about you! Aren't I right? Wasn't that crazy? So can I tell Vicky you'll meet up with him?"

"Woah, hold up! A band? I mean, I don't know...I've never really done that kind of thing before." She'd sung with a group in the past, but most of her musical experience was on her own, and she definitely wasn't used to performing for an audience that wasn't made up of a small group of friends.

"But you're _good_! You know you are," Annie said before she could argue. "And he must think so too, or else he wouldn't be trying to find some random girl from high school."

"Well..."

"C'mon, you can't tell me that being a _real_ singer isn't what you want. And think of all the cute musicians you could meet!"

"I already have a boyfriend!"

"Yeah, Todd. Who must be _amazing_ in bed, because he's a snooze everywhere else." Annie reached out, putting her hand on top of Stevie's. "Look, all you ever do is study, have boring sex with boring Todd, or sing. So you might as well do one of those things in front of an audience, right?"

She was still a little unsure about the idea, but it _was_ intriguing, and she supposed there was no harm in just talking to the guy. "Alright, I'll see what it's about."

"Yes!" Annie cheered. "I'll have Max tell him you're game and you've got time later. Now what are you going to wear?"

And that's how Stevie found herself at the front door of her dorm that night, waiting for a guy she barely knew.

"Thanks for coming all this way across campus since I'm trapped in here," she said as she signed in her guest, rolling her eyes when the dorm matron scowled at her. It was so embarrassing, not to mention unfair, that this underclassman could stay out as late as he wanted while she had a curfew simply because she was a girl.

"It's okay," he said with a shrug. "Just glad I found you. When you never called back, I figured you were..."

"Wait, you called?"

"Yeah, I tried your parents' number. Some kid answered and said you were off at college but he'd take a message."

"That would be my little brother. Is this okay?" she asked, motioning toward two vacant folding chairs set up around a card table. After a series of protests headed up by Stevie's roommate last semester, the dorm residents had won the right to have male visitors for an hour past curfew (but only in a supervised common room, of course). "The next time you call, don't bother with him. If you don't give the message to my mom, I'll never get it."

"Yeah. Got it. Next time." His conversational skills might not have improved since high school, she thought, but he was still cute. Maybe even better looking than before. Not that it mattered- she was happy with Todd!- but she wasn't blind.

"So anyway. Tell me about your band." That turned out to be the right thing to say, because all the shyness and awkwardness seemed to dissipate instantly as soon as he started talking music. He gave her the backstory of the group, describing the members and the types of songs they had been playing, and she had to admit that she was definitely impressed. They had an actual manager, and they were even putting together their own road crew! It was very different than anything she'd done before musically, but it would be an interesting challenge. There was just one thing that was bothering her. "...and so, that's why we're looking for a new girl."

"You keep saying that."

"Saying what?" Lindsey asked.

"That you want a 'girl singer'."

He shrugged. "Uh, yeah. Cause we do."

"But I don't want to be just 'the girl singer'," Stevie said. She knew that she was being pretty bold for someone who wasn't even a part of this group yet, but this was important to her and so she figured it was better that she made it clear up front. "I don't want to be the token girl who stands up there and kinda," she hummed a few notes, "but my real job is to look cute in a miniskirt and go-go boots."

"You won't. I mean, not that you wouldn't, that you'd-"

"No, I would. I'd look cute," she said, aware that his eyes were fixated on the gap between her knee-high boots and a skirt that only came down to mid-thigh, "I just want more than that. If I'm going to do this, I want to be an equal. It's only fair."

She was surprised to hear herself speak, sounding so much more assertive than she felt, and she half-expected him to roll his eyes and start complaining about 'women's libbers'. But instead, he nodded and assured her that would be the case. "The reason we need a chick...uh, a _woman_ , is because that gives us so much more material we can play. Not just because we want someone pretty." He stopped talking and blinked, swallowing hard. "Anyhow, you'd basically be the lead vocalist. Well, you and me. That's why I thought of you...cause, we sounded good together that one time. Right?"

"Definitely," she agreed, still a little amazed at how that short encounter had stuck with him. "I think that...I wanna give this a try."

His face broke out in the first genuine, un-self conscious smile she'd seen from him all night. "Far out! I mean, you'll have to get the okay from the other guys, but that won't be a problem. Our drummer- he remembers hearing you sing back in high school- he's already on board too. He said he thought you sound like Linda Ronstadt."

"No way! Are you kidding? She's my favorite," she said, cheeks tinged pink at the compliment.

"Actually, what I meant was, I was the one who said that," Lindsey quickly clarified. "But he agreed with me."

"You did? Oh my God, that's so nice." She beamed at him as a group of girls who were crowded around the TV squealed at some actor, making her have to practically shout to be heard. All around them, couples were paired off and getting as cozy as they dared with the dorm matron hovering nearby. "I'm sorry again about making you come over here. I know it's kind of a drag."

"Yeah, no," he said, clearly uncomfortable with the guy and girl pawing at each other just feet away from him. "Do you want to go somewhere else? I- not like that, just somewhere..."

She was glad he said it so that she didn't have to, because she didn't want to say goodbye just yet. Not that she was looking for a late night makeout session like the ones that were going on right in front of her, but something inside her didn't want to let him go, as if she was afraid it might be another two years before she saw him again. But there was just one small problem. "I would, but- I'm like Rapunzel trapped in the tower here after curfew. And my hair's not long enough to climb."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. It's cool, I get it."

He looked as disappointed as she felt, and so she decided to take a risk. "Want to be my prince and spring me from the castle?"

"Wh- what am I supposed to do?"

She rested her hands on her knees, leaning toward him as her voice dropped. "In a few minutes, the dorm matron will come in here and kick all the boys out. After that, she'll go outside and do a loop around the place while she has a smoke, and then she's back in for the night. So I need you to keep watch for me. You wait behind the building, somewhere she won't see you, and I'm going to go upstairs and grab my coat. When I come down, I'll wait for you to give me the all-clear through the window in the back door."

"What's the all-clear?"

"Uh, I don't care. Just wave, maybe?" she suggested, amused by how seriously he was taking this.

He nodded and she led him over to the front door, making a point of loudly wishing her guest goodbye and goodnight while the dorm matron is in earshot. Once he was gone, she dashed upstairs to her room and past her roommates, who were lounging around their suite listening to the Doors. "Whoa, Stevie's in a hurry. Don't say hi to us or anything!"

"Sorry, guys, but I've gotta get changed quick. I'm headed out." She pulled two sweaters out of her closet and held them both up to compare, bracing herself for her roomies' reactions.

"Holy cow!" And there it was. "You've known this guy for an hour and now you're going to..."

"I'm not! We're just talking. That's it."

A tall brunette groaned, throwing her arms up dramatically. "You already have a boyfriend. How about leaving some guys for us single gals, huh?"

"Estelle, you said last night you were saving yourself for Jim Morrison."

"Oh, I am," she said, blowing a kiss toward the poster on her wall, "but there's nothing wrong with having a plan B, either."

Stevie rolled her eyes as she decided on a sweater and reached for a pair of jeans. "Is anyone going to let me back in when I give you the signal?"

The roommates had come up with 'the signal' for when someone went out after curfew, which involved throwing pebbles at the window until someone went downstairs to let them back into the building. The other girls grumbled about it being a weeknight, they were tired, no one wanted to get in trouble, and various other excuses until Stevie had had enough.

"Who here has snuck out the least number of times? Hmm? I think that would be me. You all owe me this."

"I'll do it," Annie finally agreed. "But I want all the details tomorrow. And if you go to all this trouble and don't at least kiss him, I'm never helping you again."

Stevie just shook her head, ignoring her friends as she hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the back stairwell was a door with a narrow window. She put her back to the wall and peered sideways, trying to see outside while not being detected by anyone who happened to be passing by.

A hand appeared in the window, beckoning to her, and she grinned at the hand's owner as she pushed open the heavy door. "We're good?"

"We're good," he repeated. "But you're sure that...I don't want you to get in trouble."

"We'll be fine. We've just gotta keep our voices down." She sat on the top step of the small concrete staircase, waiting for him to do the same. "Uh- you can sit."

"Oh yeah, right," he said. He sat down beside her, their arms and legs almost touching as he started fishing for something in his coat pocket.

"What's that?"

He holds up a joint and flicks his lighter. "You want?"

"Uh, okay. Sure." She had only smoked a couple of times before, but she didn't want to be a complete square, so she took the rolled up piece of paper from his hand and tried to look like she knew what she was doing. To her relief, when she passed it back to him, he seemed about as awkward and inexperienced as she felt.

"My coach would probably kill me if he knew I was doing this," he admitted, clearing his throat while she attempted to cough as delicately as possible.

"Oh, that's right, Annie said you swim. So you must be pretty good, huh?"

He shrugged. "I'm okay. My brothers are better. One of them's up in Colorado training for the Olympics next year."

"Seriously? Wow."

"Yeah. Kinda hard to live up to that, y'know? But at least I got a scholarship, so my folks are happy- they like being able to brag to the neighbors that all their kids are college athletes."

"But is it what _you_ really want to do?" she asked, taking another hit and exhaling in what she hoped was a suitably rock and roll way.

"Eh, I guess. I've been doing it for so long that it's hard to imagine _not_ doing it. But so far it's been a lot different than high school. Training in college is way more hardcore and between that and the band, I don't have time for much else. My old man's gonna lose it when he sees my grades," he says, shaking his head.

"What's your major?"

"I dunno yet. Just taking whatever classes sounded the easiest...but I guess I didn't pick 'em well, did I?" he joked, turning toward her and flashing a quick smile that made her feel warm all over despite the chill in the autumn air. "It was tough to find ones that fit my schedule when I have swim practice in the morning, and then in the afternoon...we rehearse at my parents' place most days but since I can't have a car on campus, I'm at the mercy of whoever I can bum a ride off of."

"I have a car," she said quickly. "I mean, if this works out...I'm done with class by noon every day. You might as well ride with me if we're going to the same place, right?"

"Sure, that'd be great if you don't mind."

"Not at all. And it'll give you extra time to study," she said, trying to sound like she was concerned for his academic well-being and not just looking for a way to spend more time with him.

"Yeah. I should probably do some of that. Because my parents would get over it eventually if I quit swimming, but I can't flunk out. At least not until the draft ends, I guess."

Stevie nodded. "My boy- uh, this guy I know- he keeps saying it's not going to be over anytime soon. He's applying to seminaries so that he can get a permanent deferment and not have to stay in school until he's 40."

"Well, at the rate I'm going, it'll probably take me that long to finish," he said. "So why are you here if you're not hiding from the Army?"

"I'm like you, I guess. Making my parents happy." She told him about how she wanted to go to beauty school, but her mom said she was 'too smart for a life of hot rollers and emery boards' and that was the end of that. "But they promised me that if I still want to go there after I graduate, they'll pay for it. I just have to get that diploma first."

"They're hoping you'll change your mind, or you'll forget about it in the meantime," Lindsey surmised.

"Exactly. And I'm gonna prove them wrong, and then I'll be the only hairstylist in town with an English degree."

"You can probably charge people extra for that," he joked, and the two of them exchanged shy smiles. "So why English?"

"Eh, I like reading and writing, so it sounded like a good choice. And it's okay, I guess. My grades are decent enough to keep my mom and dad from cutting me off, and I have friends in my classes. It's not as boring as high school. Speaking of..." she added, deciding that there was something she should get off her chest if she was going to start spending a lot of time with this guy. "I'm glad you called again, or tried to, after what happened back then. I figured you were probably still pissed at me."

"What? Nah." Even through the darkness she could see that he was a little flushed, which she interpreted to mean that it had bothered him more than he was going to admit to her.

"I swear I didn't lie to you when I said I was single. Because I honestly was, and then the next day my ex said he wanted to get back together. It just happened so fast."

"I believe you."

"I was sorta...I really wanted to say yes to you," she admitted, hair falling in her face as she looked down at a spot on the toe of her shoe. "I was going to ask you if you wanted to hang out again, but..."

"So why didn't you?"

"Because you kinda hung up on me."

"Oh. Yeah," he said, biting his lip like he was trying not to laugh.

"But we're older and wiser now-"

"I have a girlfriend," he blurted out.

She frowned, confused by his non-sequitur. "That's...good for you! I do too. I mean, I have a boyfriend."

"That's...alright. He go here?"

"Yeah. He's a year older than me. What about your girl?"

"Nah, she's up at Stanford."

Stevie had to admit she was impressed, and maybe a little intimidated. Stanford coeds were supposed to be much more sophisticated, not to mention sexually liberated, than state college girls. "Does she come to your gigs?"

"Not usually. You're not going to bring your boyfriend to practice, are you?"

"What? No."

"Good. We don't like other people distracting us."

"He won't," she said, bristling slightly. She didn't like him assuming she was one of those girls who couldn't do anything unless they had their man right beside them. Deciding it was better to change the subject away from significant others, she asked "What do you think I should sing for you guys?"

"Hmm. You said you like Linda Ronstadt?"

"Yes! I could do Different Drum," she suggested, singing a few bars of her current favorite song, and his reaction made her want to keep singing all night just so that he would keep looking at her that way.

"Woah, yeah. That's killer. Definitely do that. Lemme think about what else...do you still write stuff?"

"Kinda, I guess. Sometimes," she said, as if her whole suite didn't have to listen to the fruits of her labor every afternoon. "But it's really just solo stuff. More country-ish."

"Can I hear it anyway?" She hesitated because they were all still works in progress, but at this point she just couldn't deny him anything, so she closed her eyes and started in on the first verse. By the end of the chorus he was humming along in harmony with her. "That's good, seriously."

She grinned and wrapped her arms around herself shyly. "It sounded better with you."

"You know what else I bet we could do?" he asked as they started swapping song ideas back and forth, sharing their favorites and experimenting with which ones sounded the best with their voices blended together. They both began to relax, the effects of the joint they had shared making them feel a little giddy, and it wasn't long before they had moved on to TV theme songs and commercial jingles.

"Wait, wait...did you ever watch that filmstrip in school, the one with the turtle talking about what to do if we got nuked?"

"Yes! What the fuck was that shit?"

"C'mon, sing it with me? Duck! And cover! Duck-" She clapped her hand over her mouth, jumping to her feet as the door behind them suddenly swung open.

"Stevie?"

"Holy shit, Estelle, you almost scared me to death! What's going on?"

Stevie's roommate ignored her, grinning at Lindsey. "Hey there. I'm Estelle."

"Estelle, this is Lindsey," Stevie said. "Lindsey, Estelle's sister goes to Stanford. Just like your _girlfriend_."

Despite Stevie's emphasis on the last word, Estelle was undaunted. "What a small world, huh? Wow. My friend was right when she said you were cute."

"What are you doing here?" Stevie asked again, Lindsey sheepishly looking down at where his hands are stuffed into his pockets.

"It's Stevie's bedtime," Estelle apologized to Lindsey. "I'm gonna have to steal her from you now."

"Estelle..."

"You guys have been out here a long time and I'm the only one who's still awake. I'm tired of waiting. Some of us have a test at 8 AM and can't sit outside with boys all night...talking."

"It's okay," Lindsey said. "I should get some sleep too. I've gotta be in the pool by six- but I'll meet you here in the afternoon, right?"

Stevie nodded. "Okay. So...goodnight, I guess?"

"Yeah. G'night..."

The two of them stood still, unsure of what to do now other than look nervously at each other. Estelle watched over them until she couldn't stand it anymore. "Enough! Time to go."

Stevie settled on reaching out for his arm, her hand brushing over it before letting Estelle pull her through the doorway.

She knew she would see him in a few hours. So why did she miss him already? _You're being ridiculous_ , she told herself, watching through the window as he walked away.


	3. Chapter 3

"Goddamnit, watch what you're doing!" Stevie tries to sound angry as she chastises Lindsey for stepping on the hem of her long skirt, but she starts giggling before she can even finish her sentence. "Are you okay?"

Lindsey waves her off, having very nearly tripped and fallen face-first onto the ground as he tried to get out of the van. "It's all good."

"You two better not have been drinking more back there," the van's driver warns them, flicking the ashes from his cigarette out the window. "If I see that the rest of my beer's gone..."

"We weren't, swear to God," Stevie says with her arms crossed over her chest.

Lindsey shakes his head, looking at his surroundings. "Uh, this is the wrong side of campus."

"The walk'll be good for you. Sober you up," their head roadie says, throwing the van into reverse before anyone has the chance to argue.

Lindsey starts walking away and then realizes he's on his own. "Stevie. _Steph_. This way."

"Nooo, c'mon. I don't wanna head home yet. It's such a nice night, so let's go for a walk."

"But you already missed curfew..."

"Exactly! It's not like I'm going to be in any _more_ trouble than I already am, so I might as well stay out until morning," she says. She knows she'll be hating every second of the next week, not being allowed out of the dorm after dinner time, but right then she couldn't be bothered to care. Not after the night they had just had.

\-------------------------

About three months had gone by since she joined the band. Her first gig came only eight days after she started rehearsing with them, and she almost didn't make it onstage when an intense wave of nausea struck her five minutes before showtime. She ran behind the nearest building to hide while her bandmates and the crew looked on in confusion.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, there was nothing in her stomach because she hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. She could taste the bile rising in the back of her throat and started gasping for air as her chest tightened, embarrassed by the knowledge that the whole group was watching her.

"Oh my God, you guys are useless," she heard an unfamiliar female voice say, followed by a small hand touching her shoulder a moment later. "Here, try drinking some of this? It's just water."

She turned her head slightly to see Lindsey's girlfriend giving her a sympathetic frown. Not only was this her first show, but it was her first time meeting this girl she was so curious about. They had gone to the same high school, and although they had never crossed paths, Stevie recognized her name from the endless announcements on the PA system about her winning an award for straight A's or an art contest or healing baby swans with her bare hands.

It wasn't like Stevie was jealous. She had no reason to be, she told herself. This wasn't a competition. But when this pretty stranger who was well-dressed and immaculately made up came over to Stevie and introduced herself as Lindsey's girlfriend...she couldn't deny that her heart sank just a little.

She had definitely wanted to make a good impression, and this sure as hell wasn't it, but right now she wasn't in a position to refuse help. Thanking the other girl meekly, she took a slow sip from a metal thermos.

"Don't worry about it- go! I've got this, we'll be okay," Sally called out to the rest of the band, shooing them away before turning back to Stevie. "Ugh, boys are such idiots sometimes, aren't they...how are you feeling? Maybe you should sit down?"

Stevie shook her head, leaning back against the concrete wall. "I'm alright. I think."

"If you're sure. I just don't want you to fall- trust me, I know how it feels. Last year I passed out from nerves before a violin recital. I ended up hitting my head and had to go to the hospital to get stitches," she said, pointing to a faint white line high on her forehead.

It's not that this story made Stevie happy, per se, but it did put her more at ease around this otherwise seemingly perfect woman. "I won't fall, I promise."

"Good, because I'm scared of blood." The two of them shared tiny smiles. "But really, you're going to be great." Stevie gave her a skeptical look, and she nodded emphatically. "I listened to you guys warming up, remember? You're amazing. Linda Ronstadt would be jealous."

"Oh, hardly!" Stevie said, rolling her eyes.

"Trust me. I've heard the other girls they've had sing, and they're not even in your league. You're going to knock everyone out. Here, have another drink?"

She did as told, her legs starting to feel less like they were on the verge of giving out from underneath her. "Okay. I think...I can do this. Thank you, really. You're a lifesaver."

"Don't mention it." She gave Stevie's shoulder a reassuring squeeze as she headed off to rejoin her bandmates.

The guys were standing in a tight circle, muttering things to each other that she couldn't hear. All she knew was that Javier looked pissed. "Are you ready or not?"

"I'm fine," she snapped, pushing her hair back from her sweaty forehead. "Let's go."

The others headed toward their instruments, but Lindsey hung back. "Are...you're alright? Really?"

"Yes," she said tersely. But when she looked at him and saw genuine concern on his face, her tone softened. "I guess I just panicked for a sec. Thank God your girlfriend was there to talk some sense into me."

"Yeah, she's...good at that," he said, and she was suddenly very tired of this girl- this angel among mortals- once again. "But you're gonna be fine. Just don't look right at people's faces."

"My eyes are so bad that I couldn't see them even if I wanted to...at least not past the ones in the very front. Then it's all just a blur. There could be 10,000 people here and I wouldn't know it."

"There's not," he promised when he saw her hands start to shake again, reaching out hesitantly to link their fingers together. "If you get nervous, just look over at me. I'm right there next to you. And if you can't see me...I guess you should get your eyes fixed or whatever?"

She giggled, then stopped when she realized he was apparently trying to make a serious suggestion and not a wisecrack. His sense of humor was something she was still trying to figure out. "I can see you."

"Good. Okay...good." Their fingers were still loosely entwined, and if he noticed how her hands were a bit clammy, he didn't say anything about it. "Ready?"

She nodded, squeezing his hand one last time before following him onto the stage.

As it turned out, all of her pre-show anxiety had been for naught. Once the music started she was in a world of her own, completely focused on her performance. By the end of the set, she was having so much fun that Lindsey joked about needing one of those giant vaudeville hooks to drag her offstage. (And this time it _was_ an actual joke, she was pretty sure).

"Did I...I did alright, didn't I?"

"You were _amazing_ ," Sally said as she came over to the two of them, draping her arm over Lindsey's shoulder. "Linds was right. You're gonna be a star."

Stevie smiled broadly at them, not sure which of the two she enjoyed being complimented by the most. "You really said that?"

"Uh, yeah," Lindsey said, scratching his head and turning to the side like that would keep her from seeing his embarrassed grin.

She certainly felt like a star, at least for the first few weeks of her musical adventure. Every show seemed exponentially better than the last as she got more comfortable with the material, and she fed off the growing amount of attention she was getting from their audiences.

But then after about a month had passed, she seemed to hit a wall. Her voice was beginning to suffer, still adjusting to the vocal demands of singing for large groups, and a nasty mid-autumn cold only made matters worse. She felt like an outsider within the group as the newest member and the only girl, and she wasn't sure if the others really took her seriously as a musician.

Of course, the band wasn't the only thing in life she was struggling with. Her parents hadn't exactly been thrilled when she told them about her new extracurricular activity. They told her that if music was what she wanted to pursue, they would support her- just not right now. School was supposed to be her priority. Her mother also wasn't keen on the idea that her daughter was spending so much time surrounded by boys, even though Stevie assured her that she was happy with Todd and not looking to make the band into her harem.

Her mom didn't find that amusing. As it was, Todd was only slightly more supportive of her musical ambitions than her parents were. He didn't seem to mind at first, but as the band started to take up more of her time and energy, she could tell that it was wearing on him. He complained that she didn't spend enough time with him, that her afternoons and weekends were taken up by rehearsals or shows and when she was free, she was catching up on homework or was too tired to hang out. And it was partially true, although lately she had found herself feigning exhaustion just because she was sick of hearing him complain about how she was never around.

Christmas break came, giving her a three week reprieve from the pressures of school, but it ended all too quickly and then it was back to the grind. And not just for her.

"Goddamnit," Lindsey swore, slapping the cover of a thick notebook. "How am I supposed to get all this shit done by tomorrow morning?"

"What is it that you have to do?" she asked, reaching across the cafeteria table they shared to look at a stack of papers. If she was stressed out, she knew Lindsey was doubly so. Swim season was in high gear, so he'd had a full schedule even during vacation, and his parents had been less than impressed with his first semester grades. "Maybe I can help...accounting? Nope. No clue. A book review...have you actually read this book?"

"Uh, I read the first four chapters."

"Then you're on your own with that, because I've never even heard of it. Oh, wait! American government- I took this class last year!"

"Did you pass?" When she nodded, he handed her another set of papers stapled together. "It's a take-home test. Fifty multiple choice questions...we had one just like it last week and I bombed it."

"What time's it due?"

"Eight AM tomorrow," he said, groaning.

She mentally reviewed her schedule for the rest of the day. She was supposed to meet Todd at his apartment after practice, and she had her own pile of homework to do, but she wasn't concerned about that right now. None of her assignments were due until the end of the week, and Todd could live without seeing her for a day. He would be annoyed, but she had spent as much time with him during vacation as her parents would allow, so he had no reason to feel neglected. "Give it to me, Linds, I'll take care of it."

"Wha- you're sure? I mean, you don't have to..." he said in a way that indicated he wasn't going to turn down the offer.

"It's no problem," she assured him, and seeing the relief on his face confirmed for her that she was doing the right thing. "Can you come by my dorm and get it on the way to class in the morning?"

Saying it was no problem turned out to be overly optimistic. She seemed to have forgotten everything she had learned the year before, and so the assignment ended up taking three times as long as she thought it would because she had to search for the answers in one of her roommate's textbooks.

"And you are doing this guy's homework in exchange for...what, exactly?" Estelle questioned her when Stevie asked to borrow the book.

"Nothing! I'm just trying to give him a hand because he's my friend and he needs the help."

"So how come you wouldn't even let me borrow your chapter outlines from English lit?" Estelle leaned against their bedroom window with her arms crossed, smirking. "Aren't we friends?"

"I'm tired of being the one who has to pay attention in lecture because you're too busy passing notes to the boy behind you like a 12 year old."

"Oh my god, Stevie, when are you just going to admit you're in love with this kid?" she asked, ducking as Stevie threw a wadded-up ball of paper at her.

Estelle was being ridiculous, because she wasn't in love. If she was being honest with herself- well, maybe she was slightly infatuated. But only slightly.

She finished the assignment and handed it off to Lindsey the next morning as promised, and the smile he gave her more than made up for the sleep she had lost. She was his new hero...until his professor returned the tests to them.

"I- _you_ \- got a fucking C-!" Lindsey said, dropping the paper in front of Stevie's face as the librarian gave him a stern look. "What the hell? I thought you said you were good at this."

Stevie didn't appreciate his tone any more than the librarian did. "Uh, hello to you too..."

"Knock it off, Stevie, why did you tell me you could do this when you obviously can't?"

"Young man," the elderly librarian warned, tapping her pencil on a sign that read NO TALKING.

"I never told you I got all A's," Stevie hissed. "I said I passed it. Just like I passed this one right here. What grade did you get on the first test?"

"Failed it."

"And so what are you pissed at me for? I just raised your average."

"Yeah, to a D-. I needed a C, okay, that's not good enough!"

The librarian tapped her sign again and Stevie got to her feet, stuffing her books into her backpack and apologizing to the older woman. "Sorry about him. He'll shut up because I'm leaving now."

"Where are you going?" Lindsey asked as he followed after her.

"None of your business."

"I was talking to you!"

"Well, now you're done," she said, her pace quickening as she passed through the library doors. "Next time, get your girlfriend the genius to do your assignments for you."

"Huh? What's she got to do with anything?"

"Forget it." She groaned when she realized he was still at her heels. "Are you going to follow me all the way to Todd's?"

"Oh, so _that's_ where we're headed."

She resisted the urge to turn around and smack him upside the head when he said 'we'. "Yes. I left my roommate's book over there last night when I was busy doing _your_ homework."

"Ah, now I get it. You fucked it up because you were...distracted. Maybe you should've done it on your own. It's not like you didn't spend every waking second with him over break."

"My God, who are you? My mother? You bitch about my grades, about my boyfriend...why does it matter to you?" She abruptly stopped walking and turned around, causing Lindsey to almost trip over her feet. "I'm sorry, alright, I just wanted to help you. I tried."

"Then I guess you should've tried harder, huh."

Stevie bites her lip, looking away while she attempted to compose herself. It wasn't the first time she had heard that from him. During a practice the week before, he had gotten frustrated when she couldn't seem to master a chord progression he was trying to teach her on the guitar. The whole band had been sitting around in irritation, her inability to get it right holding up their progress, and when she insisted that she was trying her best he had barked at her in front of everyone to 'try harder'.

"Oh my god, are you actually crying?" She turned back around and started walking as he seemed to realize he had gone too far, reaching out to tug on her sleeve. "Fuck, I didn't mean it like that, I'm sor-"

"Leave me _alone_ , alright?" she hissed, shaking off his grasp on her arm before stalking away.

She didn't see him again until the next day when he showed up in the campus parking lot at their normal meeting time. She'd been giving him a ride to practice ever since she joined the band- or more accurately, he'd been driving her car while she lounged in the back seat and joked about him being her chauffeur. At first he had seemed so shy and awkward when it was just the two of them, turning the radio up to avoid conversation, but before too long he had started to relax and now they could talk comfortably. They knew how to make each other laugh and they were beginning to open up to each other more and more, especially when they were on their own away from the rest of the band. It was usually her favorite part of her day, having him all to herself for that brief uninterrupted time...just not today.

He immediately cast his gaze downward, looking contrite, when he saw her leaning against the side of her car. "I, uh-"

"Okay Todd, he's here. We can go now," she announced to the shaggy-haired man in the driver's seat, climbing into the passenger side and ignoring Lindsey completely.

"Todd," Lindsey said as he sat down in the back, both as a question and a greeting.

"Todd and I are having dinner with my parents tonight, so he's going to wait for me at your place while we practice." After her confrontation with Lindsey the day before, she had quickly arranged this dinner date as an excuse to avoid being alone with him. The fact that she knew he disliked her boyfriend and had no desire to spend time with him just made it that much better. His words from yesterday still stung and he deserved to be punished a little.

"Huh. Great."

"How's it going?" Todd asked, oblivious to the tension surrounding him.

"Fine. You?"

"Not well, my man. Check this out."

He took a paperback book off of the dash and passed it back to Lindsey, who read the blurb on the cover aloud. "'While you're reading these words, four people will have died from starvation. Most of them children.' That's...uh. Wow."

"It's some serious shit," Todd said in agreement, and Stevie reached across the gear shift to hold his hand, making sure to take stock of Lindsey's reaction in the rearview mirror.

"Why don't you tell Linds what you've been reading, baby."

That's all the encouragement he needed. "Did you know that the world's population has _doubled_ within a single generation? There could be 8 billion people on this planet by 1980, if a massive famine doesn't wipe us all out first. Which it probably will."

She let her boyfriend talk mostly uninterrupted, save for leaning over to kiss him at stoplights and interjecting with something like 'isn't that interesting, Lindsey?' every so often to make sure he was paying attention. Stevie had heard this entire spiel before and didn't particularly care to hear it again, but she was glad to listen if it meant subjecting Lindsey to it as well.

"...and the government will have no choice but to start putting chemicals in the water to temporarily sterilize the public-"

"Yeah, I don't think they could really do that," Lindsey scoffed.

"Do you have any idea about the kind of shit they're spraying in Vietnam? They say oh, they're just pesticides...that's BS. They're testing somethin'. First it's them, then tomorrow it's us..."

Stevie watched Lindsey roll his eyes and she had to stifle a laugh. She had originally met Todd at an English department gathering where he read a poem he had written about homeless animals, and his obvious compassion was what had drawn her in. They started talking, went back to his apartment- and by the end of the evening, she wasn't a virgin anymore. She was almost surprised when he called her the next day because she assumed she had just been a quick fuck for him. But he wanted more than that, and she didn't want to be a one night stand kind of girl, so from then on she had herself a boyfriend. It was a good relationship, she supposed, not having anything to compare it to other than a short-lived high school romance. He treated her well and she trusted him. But sometimes, once he got on these rants of his...

"We're here, honey, you'll have to finish that story later," Stevie said, trying to seem disappointed as she gestured to him to pull the car into the Buckingham's driveway. Lindsey practically leapt out of the door but she held back, her arms around Todd until she was sure he was no longer watching them.

She assumed Lindsey had gone inside the house, so she was surprised when she found him waiting for her next to the garage. "Stevie. Hey."

"Hmm?" she asked coolly.

"I just, I, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have."

"Shouldn't have done what?" She feigned ignorance, determined to make him work for this.

"I was an asshole, okay, you were trying to help and I got pissed and...it wasn't your fault. I'm sorry."

"You're right, you were an asshole," she said, nodding with her hands on her hips. "Just like you were a jerk the other day when all you guys were piling on me about my guitar playing."

He ran a hand through his dark curls. "Oh. Yeah. That too. Fuck...is there anyone I haven't pissed off this week?"

"So it's not just me, huh?"

"Ha. I wish. I told my parents I was quitting swimming, and..."

"You did?" she asked, her voice softening. She knew he had been thinking about it for months, but she didn't know that he had finally made a decision. "How'd they take it?"

"Better than my coach did," he said with a humorless laugh. "I mean. They told me that whatever you do, we'll support you, we just want you to be happy...but then they have to start in on how my brothers swam and did all these other activities and still got straight A's. So basically, they're saying 'we still love you even if you're a disappointment'."

"Shit, Linds, I'm sorry." He looked so dejected and her instinct was to hug him, but she held back because she wasn't sure how he'd react.

"S'okay. Just be glad you're not the youngest sibling. That way, you don't have anyone to live up to."

"Hey, it's not so easy being the oldest. Parents are extra strict with the first child because they don't know what the hell they're doing yet. You're their test kid."

She managed to get a tiny smile out of him with that, and he was silent for a moment as he toed at the gravel beneath their feet. "I, um. Now that I don't have to be up at the crack of dawn...if you want, maybe we can work on that guitar part some more one day after practice? Because you're really close to getting it and...I'll be cool this time, I promise."

"I...yeah," she said, both of them searching out the other's eyes for some reassurance. "I'd like that."

\-------------------------

Stevie and Lindsey strolled leisurely through the dark and mostly deserted campus, both reliving the night they had just had. After weeks of struggling, it seemed like everything had come together for her in this performance, and the pride bubbling up inside her made her feel even more lightheaded than the beers she had drank after the show.

The school they had played at was almost two hours away, meaning that they were supposed to have left as soon as it was over in order for Stevie to get back to the dorm before curfew. But she couldn't stand the thought of sitting all alone in her room, not when she was still riding a post-gig high like this one, and so the whole group had ended up hanging out in the parking lot of a drive in restaurant until they got kicked out at closing time. Even now that she was back at school, she didn't want the night to end.


	4. Chapter 4

Stevie and Lindsey strolled leisurely through the dark and mostly deserted campus, both reliving the night they had just had. After weeks of struggling, it seemed like everything had come together for her in this performance, and the pride bubbling up inside her made her feel even more lightheaded than the beers she had drank after the show.

The school they had played at was almost two hours away, meaning that they were supposed to have left as soon as it was over in order for Stevie to get back to the dorm before curfew. But she couldn't stand the thought of sitting all alone in her room, not when she was still riding a post-gig high like this one, and so the whole group had ended up hanging out in the parking lot of a drive in restaurant until they got kicked out at closing time. Even now that she was back at school, she didn't want the night to end.

"You're gonna be in so much trouble," Lindsey says in a singsong voice.

"I told you, I don't care! Ugh, I can't wait to be in my own apartment next year and then I can do whatever the hell I want."

"Your dad was okay with that?" As an upperclass(wo)man, she would be allowed to live off campus, but only with the permission of her parents.

"He said I can as long as my grades are good this semester. But he's already signed all the paperwork, so it's too late to back out now." She grins. "I told you, I always get what I want."

"I'm thinking of moving back home for next year since now I don't have to be at the pool every morning at 6. It's easier that way."

"What, because you don't have your mom waiting on you hand and foot in the dorms?" she says, laughing.

"Hey, you're not the only one who knows how to work their folks."

"Wait...if you're not living here, who's going to take me to practice?" she asks with an exaggerated pout.

"Your boyfriend's got nothing to do, make him drive you around."

"But that's _our_ thing, it's..." She trails off, shrugging.

"I'll come hang out with you in your new apartment," Lindsey promises. "Only if he's not there...what? Don't look at me like that. He's boring as fuck."

"Geez, you sound like my roommates." They reach a clearing and she starts humming to herself, swaying back and forth.

Lindsey shakes his head at her. "What the hell are you doing? And what are you singing?"

"It's a waltz. I'm waltzing."

"By yourself?"

"I wouldn't have to if you'd dance with me," she says, extending her arm toward him.

"No. Just- no. I don't dance."

"Come on! Twirl me." When he doesn't cooperate, she grabs his hand and lifts it over her head, twirling around underneath it. "See, it was fun! Now dip me."

"No! You'll fall on your ass...how much did you have to drink, anyway?"

"I only had two beers! I don't have to be drunk to dance."

"Yeah, I noticed," he says, frowning as she stops dancing and watches him with an awed smile on her face. "What are you thinking about?"

She looks slightly guilty, knowing she's been caught, but then the smile returns. "We were fucking _amazing_ tonight!"

"We were!" he agrees, her enthusiasm irresistible to him. They go back and forth, recounting their set like they were trading memories of long ago instead of events that were only a few hours old.

"...and then, I don't know. I just can't explain it. It's like I didn't even have to try. Like it came naturally and it wasn't just the same thing you and I practiced a thousand times this week," she says, still wide eyed and grinning, as they cut through a path that led behind the library.

"I told you! I said that we were going to get it to work and it was going to be awesome. We definitely have to play that last when we- shit."

"When we what?"

He stops walking, rubbing his cheek with his palm. "Damnit. I wasn't supposed to say anything. It's nothing."

"What? No way, you can't do that," she protests. "Tell me what it is."

"I promised David I wouldn't. No one else knows yet, either."

Stevie is unsatisfied with this answer, annoyed that Lindsey and their manager are conspiring together. "Lindsey. If you don't stop playing around, I swear to God-"

"Okay, fine! But you've gotta keep it a secret, alright, David thought we should wait to tell you cause he was afraid you'd start freaking out. So you have to swear you'll be cool." She nods about half a dozen times in rapid succession. "He got us a gig next month at a festival. Opening for Janis Joplin."

She crinkles up her nose, sure she's misunderstanding. "You mean. Like. _The_ Janis Joplin."

"Yeah. That one." Her mouth drops open as she lets out a shriek that probably could be heard on the other side of campus. She jumps up in the air without thinking, launching herself toward him in what she intends to be a hug.

And yet before she even knows what's happening, she's got her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her legs wrapped around his waist and they're kissing, mouths and tongues colliding in a frenzy of activity. He somehow manages to keep them upright, grabbing onto her thighs and blindly taking a few steps forward until her back is braced against the library wall. She can feel their bodies pressed together, his erection rubbing right between her legs with every movement, and she just _wants_ him.

He groans, his hips jerking forward involuntarily as his teeth pull at her bottom lip. The back of her head bumps into the brick wall behind her, hard enough that she'll have a bruise tomorrow, but all she can focus on is how he'd practically be inside her right now if it wasn't for the layers of fabric between them.

Despite doing his best to hold onto her, she finds herself slipping downward. She tightens her grip on his shoulders, nails scratching at the base of his neck as she struggles to pull herself up, and she gasps as she feels his entire length sliding against her right _there_...

"Oh god," she cries out, and he grunts in agreement. "No, no, I'm...stop. I can't."

He finally breaks the kiss, both of them dazed and struggling for breath as he tries to set her down on her feet without dropping her.

She takes a few steps away from him before she can change her mind, covering her mouth with her trembling hands and shaking her head. "Shit. Oh shit, that was bad. That was so bad. That was really, really bad."

"Jesus Christ, it wasn't that bad." He scowls, sitting down on a nearby bench and shifting around in obvious discomfort.

"I didn't mean _that!_ That was g- we just can't. We can't do _that_."

"Well, we kinda just did."

"But we can't. I have a boyfriend and you have a girlfriend and-"

"I dunno if I do anymore," he says, rubbing his face in disbelief. "I got a Dear John letter...Dear Lindsey, I guess. Whatever."

"Wait, what? You didn't tell me...what happened?" she asks, taking a seat next to him. She knew that Sally was away in Vail working at a ski resort for the month, but they had seemed almost annoyingly happy the last time she saw them together.

"I have no fucking clue. She wrote me this whole thing about how she went to some women's group out there and it made her realize that she needs to find out who she is without the patriarchy. What does that even mean? She says she doesn't want to break up, she just wants to 'discover herself'. Like, is that a nice way of saying she's screwing someone else?" He shakes his head. "Why the hell are you so confusing?"

" _Me?!_ "

"You, her- girls in general! I mean, goddamn. What is it you want?"

"Are you asking me what I want or what girls in general want?" she asks. "Because I'm not psychic." When he doesn't answer, she takes an educated guess. "I'm sorry, you know. For what just happened back there."

"I'm not." She frowns at him, wondering why he's making this so much harder than it has to be. Why can't he just accept her apology and then never mention it again? "What? I'm not. I wanted it, and I think you did too."

"I have a boyfriend and I'm not a cheater. I-"

"That's not what I'm talking about, Stevie."

She sighs loudly in frustration, but he doesn't cave. "Okay. I mean. If we're being truthful...then yeah. I've thought about you and I doing...that...before. And I like you, Lindsey, it's just-"

"I know, I know. You like me, but only as a friend. I get it."

"That's...not actually what I was going to say." He does a double take, suddenly looking so hopeful, and she hurries to continue before he gets the wrong idea. "I guess there's part of me that does have, uh, feelings for you. But I'm with someone else, and even if I wasn't..."

"Yeah?"

"If we're going to be in a band together, I can't be anything more than friends with you. I like you, I like you a lot, but I don't want to be that girl who's only part of the group because of her boyfriend."

"But that's stupid," he argues. "You're already in, so you know that's not true."

"Do I?" She already felt like the weakest link much of the time, being the newest member, and being the lone girl didn't help. They sometimes acted suspicious of her, alternating between complaining that she wasn't pulling her weight and insinuating that she was trying to steal the spotlight. When she was alone with Lindsey, he treated her like an equal, but when they were with the whole group it seemed like his loyalty was split between defending her and going along with the rest of the guys. Not that she was going to talk to him about any of this, of course. He wouldn't get it.

"I dunno. But you should."

She tries another tactic. "So then what happens if we break up? Who gets to stay?"

"Why does someone have to leave?"

"Well, I think it would get seriously awkward if they didn't! Not just for us, but for everyone else too," she points out. "It's not fair to anybody."

"You know, for someone who says they just want to be friends...it sounds like you've really thought this through. I mean, we're not even a couple and you've already planned out what would happen if we broke up."

She looks away from him, thankful he can't see her flushed face in the dim glow of the nearby streetlight. "What's your point?"

"Nothing. I just think it's funny."

"Lindsey, why are you making this so difficult? I'm trying to be honest with you."

"Are you? Cause it kinda sounds like you're just making excuses. And...you don't have to, y'know, I get it. If you're not into me, you're not into me," he says, patting his jacket pocket and swearing when it comes up empty.

"And I'm telling you, that's not...I really do like you. But if I'm serious about this, wanting to make a career out of music someday, I can't have people thinking I only got where I did because of who I slept with." He snorts, and she shakes her head. "See, you don't understand because it's different for you. You're a guy. You don't have people at shows asking you 'which one is your boyfriend' because they assume I _have_ to be dating one of you."

"People ask you that? Really?"

"Not people, guys. And you know what I always say when they ask? I say 'all of them'. Because it's a ridiculous question."

He smiles at her and laughs like he's temporarily forgotten all the discomfort between them. "I, uh. I didn't know that."

"Well, it's true." Their brief moment of connection ends as he falls silent and turns away again. She knows he's hurt and it's killing her, especially when she swears she can still feel his lips on hers. It makes her want to throw everything else aside, the band and their significant others and all her sensible reasoning be damned, but she knows she has to be strong. She's doing the right thing. So why does it have to be this hard?

"Stevie?"

It's not until he says her name that she notices the tears welling in her eyes, and she sniffles as she tries to hold them back. "I'm fine."

"I'm sorry, just...I didn't mean to," he stutters out. She doesn't think he even knows what he's apologizing for, just that he doesn't want to see her upset, and it only makes the lump in her throat that much bigger.

"Don't. It's- I'm not mad at you. But we were having such a good time tonight and then...things are going to be weird between us now, and I really hate that. We've only known each other a few months, but you're pretty much one of my best friends and. God, I didn't want to fuck that up!"

"You didn't," he promises. "Nothing has to change. We're still friends."

"Seriously? You mean it?"

"I mean it." Slowly, cautiously, he reaches out and squeezes her hand in between both of his.

She wishes he wouldn't let go, but he does. And although she believes what he says, she just doesn't think she can bear to be around him anymore tonight. "It's getting late...I guess we should probably get going."

"Oh. Okay. Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm?"

"Actually, I think I'm just gonna crash at Todd's. I don't wanna have to wake my roommates up," she says.

"Sure. Yeah. I'll still walk you over there...uh, if that's alright."

They're both silent as they make the trip to her boyfriend's apartment, the excitement and camaraderie they had felt earlier in the night having completely vanished. It was only when their destination was in sight that Stevie realized- she had cheated on this person that she claimed to love. He'd never find out, because she wasn't going to tell him and she knew Lindsey wasn't going to either, but she knew she should be feeling a lot more guilt than she actually did. She had been so concerned about hurting Lindsey and ruining their friendship that she hadn't even bothered to think about Todd.

Lindsey pauses at the corner across the street from the apartment. "Um. I guess I'll see you Monday."

"Yeah. I'll see you then." She can't tell if his eyes look suspiciously glassy, or if it's just her own clouded vision.

"Don't bring him," Lindsey says, pointing toward Todd's door with his thumb, even though they both already know that she will. "And Stevie?"

"Hmm?"

"You were...you were really good tonight."

She nods tightly. "You too."

\--------------------------

"C'mon...harder, God..."

Stevie digs her heels into her boyfriend's ass, urging him to pick up the pace. She had all but thrown herself at him when he opened the door, ignoring his roommates' complaints at being woken up by her knocking and dragging him into the bedroom.

"Shit, man, she's gonna fuck his brains out," one had mumbled, rubbing his eyes as he watched them disappear. "Where the hell do you find girls like that?"

She knew those perverts were probably listening through the wall, and she would be mortified when she had to face them in the morning, but right now she didn't care.

"You're...you want me to..."

"Yes," she hisses as she bites at his shoulder in frustration.

He stops what he's doing and pulls out, turning her over onto her stomach and reaching for her hips as he starts driving into her from behind. She had never been this aggressive sexually before, and she was sure he was going to suspect that something was up, but he seemed to be enjoying himself too much to wonder about it.

At least _someone_ was having a good time. She grabs onto the pillow underneath her head, burying her face in it and squeezing her eyes shut. Up until now, she hadn't thought there was anything wrong with their sex life. Some times were better than others, sure, but all of a sudden it seemed so unsatisfying and just fucking _boring_ compared to...no. That was ridiculous. It was just a kiss- a very good one, but still. They were a tiny bit buzzed and still riding the post-show high. It was unexpected and a little forbidden and _that's_ what made it so intense. That was all.

Yet no matter how hard she tries to focus on what's happening right now, her mind keeps going right back to that moment behind the library. Thinking about the way his mouth tasted, how he kissed her like he couldn't get close enough and how it felt with his entire body pressed up against hers. How she wanted all of him.

And now she feels it building, the tingling sensation starting low in her abdomen and quickly spreading outward like she's never felt before. She can hear her boyfriend groaning out her name. But as she comes, all she can see is a boy with dark curls and blue eyes. 


	5. Chapter 5

**_(this chapter begins about 8 months after the events of the last chapter, in the late summer of 1968...)_ **

"So now...I don't know what to do. I've never been broken up with like this and...I just didn't see this coming. I can't believe it. What'd I miss?"

Stevie leans back against the trunk of a large tree in her parents' front yard, taking another swig from the bottle of whiskey she had lifted from her dad's liquor cabinet. It was expensive, something he only brought out for special occasions, and she knew that 'drinking out on the lawn because you've just been dumped' probably didn't qualify. But her folks were gone for the evening, and they were already mad enough at her that she didn't think this would make much of a difference.

She had only taken one class over summer term- a required math class that she decided she wanted to get out of the way before the school year started in earnest again. Math wasn't her best subject, but she was passing. Or she _was_ until she took the final exam, which was worth almost half of her total grade for the class, and failed it miserably. She had been watching the mailbox for a week in hopes of intercepting her transcript before it fell into her mother's hands, but she was as unsuccessful at that as she had been at College Algebra. Her parents were none too pleased to receive this news. She had gotten into a huge fight with them the night before and cried herself to sleep after being lectured for what felt like hours, only to get into an even worse argument with her boyfriend that afternoon.

Normally she would've went straight to her mother for comfort. But they still weren't speaking, and all of her closest girlfriends were either spending the summer in their hometowns or away on vacation. She had left Todd's just in time to make it to practice and tried to act like nothing was amiss. They were already down one member for the week, but Javier insisted they still rehearse, so she was doing double duty for the time being. She held it together until the group took a smoke break, when she dissolved into tears upon smelling her now-ex's favorite Camels. The boys had never been Todd's biggest fans, and they were clearly uncomfortable with this show of feminine emotion, but they tried their hardest to console their bandmate in the best way they knew how. Namely, with cheap alcohol.

The boys started to vanish once the beers did, but one brave soul held back. And now here they were, just the two of them and a mostly empty bottle of whiskey, as the sun started to set.

"How does this even happen? One day you want to spend the rest of your life with someone and then...poof," she says, drunkenly flexing her hand to mimic an explosion, "it's all gone. Where did it go? No one knows."

Her companion shrugs. "Maybe he'll change his mind. Maybe he'll realize he said shit without thinking and made a mistake."

"Yeah, but...is that even what I want? Cause I don't know that he really cares about me. He cares about us as a couple, but what about _me_? He obviously doesn't give a fuck about what I want with my life. He just wants me with him and...I don't think I can be with a guy like that," she admits, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

"You shouldn't put up with it. Y'know, I always thought you could do a lot better."

They were simple words, but in her intoxicated state, it felt like the wisdom of the ages. He was right! She was so lucky to have someone so smart with her. Why hadn't she noticed before what a great guy he was? "I could, you are so right. I could do better! Thank you. Thank you so much."

"You-"

"You're really nice to listen to me," she interrupts, taking his hand without warning. "You're just a really nice, really good friend. And I am so grateful that."

She stops, watching him closely. Neither one of them seems to notice or care that she hadn't finished her sentence. Taking a deep breath, she sets down the bottle and cups his cheek to pull him in for a kiss. "Brian..."

With their eyes closed, nobody sees the familiar car that slows down upon nearing her house, then speeds up and disappears down the block.

\-------------------------

She showed up to practice the next afternoon feeling like she had been kicked in the head several hundred times, wearing an oversized pair of cat-eye sunglasses and an even more oversized hat to block out as much of the summer sun as possible.

In all honesty, she really didn't want to be there. She might have been hungover as hell, but she was sober enough to remember every single second of the night before, including all the seconds spent making out with their guitarist.

Her only hope was that he had blacked out and it had been wiped from his memory. But as soon as their eyes met from across the Buckingham's garage, she knew she wasn't that fortunate.

She ducks her head, hiding behind the brim of her hat and her dark lenses, and focuses on the reason she had dragged herself to practice in the first place. Lindsey had been away for over a week to watch his brother compete in the Olympics and had returned the night before. They had spent a lot of time together that summer- almost as much as she had spent with Todd. The band and their assorted friends and significant others passed plenty of hot afternoons lounging around the pool in the Buckingham's backyard, and oftentimes she would be the last one left as nighttime approached. Those moments were her favorite, watching the sun sink toward the horizon as she floated lazily in the water or sat next to him in the grass and listened to him play his guitar. It had been lonely that week without him, much more so than she had anticipated, so seeing him again was definitely worth dragging herself out of bed and past her mother's disapproving glare. "Linds. Welcome back!"

He doesn't look up from the piece of paper he's writing on. "Hey."

"How was Mexico?"

He shrugs and keeps writing.

"I'm really glad you're home," she says, trying a different tactic.

This gets a response, albeit not the one she was anticipating, as he finally lifts his head and gives her a glare that makes her mother's seem downright friendly. "Oh, I bet you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Javier claps his hands together twice before she can get an answer. "Okay, Stevie finally showed up, so let's get going. Lindsey, did you look at the setlist I wrote out for Saturday?"

"Uh, yeah." He holds up the piece of paper he's been so fascinated by. "But why does almost every song have just Stevie on lead?"

Javier is displeased with the feedback he's getting. "It's not almost every song."

"Most of them," Lindsey insists.

"Well, she was the one who was here all week, so that's what we rehearsed. We can't exactly practice anything new with you on lead if you're gone."

"So the minute I leave, this turns into Stevie's band and now we're all just playing backup?" he asks, looking sideways at her. I'm sure that's exactly what you wanted, isn't it?"

"I didn-"

"Dude, she had nothing to do with it," Brian answers for her, everyone a bit confused as to where this is coming from.

"Sh-"

"Chrissakes, Lindsey," Javier says, cutting him off. "What gives? Did you get dumped too?"

"No, who got dumped?"

"Todd and I _broke up_ ," Stevie says testily, surprised someone hadn't already filled him in before she arrived. The boys had a love for gossip to rival that of any 12 year old girl.

Lindsey makes a face of realization, as if everything was falling into place. "Of _course_ you did."

"What the hell are you even talking about?" she asks, stomping her platform heel against the concrete floor.

"Uh, guys, can we just play something?" Bob ventures, trying to diffuse the explosion he can sense coming. "Anything? Please?"

"Fine by me," Stevie says, and she doesn't look at or speak to Lindsey for the rest of the afternoon.

\-------------------------

She wakes up at noon the next day to find a note in her mother's handwriting taped to her bedroom door. "Went to the grocery store. Bob called for you- says no practice today. Lindsey has tonsillitis."

"Ugh! That little asshole!" she shouts, her voice bouncing off the walls of the empty house as she crumples up the piece of paper and stomps back into her room to get dressed.

A half hour later, she's striding up the walk to the Buckingham's front door. His parents' cars are both missing from the driveway, but his is still parked in its usual spot on the curb, so she knows he must be home alone as she starts pounding on the door. "Lindsey! Open up!"

She stops knocking and can hear footsteps inside the house, but the door remains closed.

"I know you're in there, Lindsey!"

"Didn't Bob tell you?" she hears him ask from the other side of the door. "I'm sick."

"With tonsillitis. You told me you had your tonsils out when you were nine years old!"

"Yeah, well, I lied. Sorry!"

"I am _not_ playing around here, I will keep knocking all day if I have to, so you'd better cut the bullshit and let me in." She keeps thumping on the door for emphasis, and seconds later she hears the lock click.

He grabs her by the sleeve and pulls her through the doorway. "Get in here and stop making a scene before the neighbors start complaining, will you?"

"Thank you, I will!" she says, dropping her purse onto the linoleum. "So are you going to tell me what's up with you? Because you were a jerk to me for no reason yesterday and now you're obviously trying to avoid me, so I think I deserve to know why."

"Oh, that's what you think? Good. Do you want to know what I think?"

"Yes, actually, I do!"

He's turned away from her, muttering at a portrait of his parents on their wedding day that hangs on the wall. "I think I must be a fucking idiot to believe anything you say."

"I still don't know what you're-"

"Because I believed you, y'know. When you said that it wasn't me, it was the band. I might not have agreed with your reasons, but I believed you."

"What? Where is this coming from?" she asked, utterly confused.

"I saw you, okay? A couple of nights ago. I saw you and Brian sucking each other's faces off in your front yard."

_Shit._ She could feel all the color draining from her face, her knees becoming a little unsteady. "But...how? What were you doing?"

"I drove by your house when I got home. I wanted to see y- it doesn't matter!" He finally turns around, slouching against the wall. "The point is, you got dumped-"

"Broke up!"

"Broke up with Todd, and then...what, a couple hours later, you're with Brian?"

"Woah, let's slow down!" She shakes her head emphatically. "I'm not _with_ anybody."

He snorts. "Does Brian know that?"

"I was upset, and I had a lot to drink," she says, dodging the question. They hadn't exactly talked about what they were doing, but Brian _had_ to know this was a rebound and not a relationship. Right? "I didn't know you can't mix liquor and beer, okay."

"How did you not- whatever. You weren't drunk yesterday, so what's your excuse for that?"

"What about yesterday? Were you following me or something?"

He laughs at her reaction. "Don't flatter yourself. I heard you talking to him before you left, asking if he wanted to go get something to eat."

"So? You and I do the same thing all the time, and we're not dating." It was the wrong thing to say. She could see his face turning bright red, his hands balling into fists as she hurriedly continued. "Lindsey. Everything I told you before, it was the truth. I wouldn't lie to you. I meant what I said about not wanting to complicate things with the band, exactly because of shit like this. And see, I was right, wasn't I? It shouldn't have happened, but I...I had a moment of weakness, that's all."

"Two moments," he corrects.

"Fine. But it's not like I have feelings for the kid. He just happened to be there and..."

"Oh, so do you do that often? Fuck whichever lucky guy is around at the right time?"

"I didn't fuck him!" she insists, his laughter making her furious. "What? What is so funny?"

"You really expect me to believe you just kissed him and said goodnight?"

It actually wasn't far from the truth- at least on the night when Lindsey had caught them. They made out for a while and then she sent him on his way because she knew her parents would be home soon. The next day, they decided against getting something to eat and drove out to a park to fool around in his truck. She let him untie the straps on her halter top, but when he tried to get his hand down her pants she started having second thoughts and put a stop to it. They were just supposed to be having fun, and she wasn't going to sleep with someone the day after she broke up with someone else. "I don't really care what you believe."

"Because you fucked him."

"I didn't!"

"So then what happened?"

"It was nothing! Nobody got off!" she shouts, taking a step toward him in a failed attempt to look menacing. "There, does that make you happy?"

"Yeah, actually, it does!"

"Oh my God, you are disgusting!" she says, nose turned up at him as she shakes her head. "Why am I even talking about this with you? You're not my father, you're not my boyfriend...my personal life is none of your business."

"When you're screwing around with someone from the band, then it becomes everyone's business. That's what we decided before we let you join."

"What, that everyone gets a say about my life?"

"No!" he insists, although she's pretty sure that was part of it. "We all agreed that you were off limits."

"You...lemme get this straight, you all sat around and decided who could or couldn't have me?" The thought of it creeped her out, like she was at a bride auction being sold off to the highest bidder. She knew that if it seemed like she was too friendly with any one of them, the others would start getting annoyed, but she chalked that up to stupid teenage boy competitiveness and not some actual group pact they had made. "You just assumed that, what, I'd try to get with all of you and you'd have to fight among yourselves for me?"

"Well...I guess we weren't far off, were we?"

"You guys are sick. That is honestly gross," she says, hot tears stinging her eyes. She was angry that they were talking about sleeping with her (or not sleeping with her) when they'd barely met, and she was even angrier at herself for getting into this situation. Why couldn't she have just gone into the house before she kissed Brian? Or better yet, not have kissed him at all? A brief makeout session (okay, or two) wasn't worth this level of drama. "But if it's true, then you have no room to get mad at Brian, because you weren't exactly keeping your promise either."

"Who said I'm mad at him? We're talking about _you_ here. You're the one who lied to me."

"How did I lie? Hmm? Tell me what I lied about."

"You made me think that we, that you were...you were the one who said 'I can't get involved with people in the band.' That it had nothing to do with me personally. And I believed that. I'm sure that made you happy, huh? You probably thought it was hilarious."

"Lindsey, you are...not making sense." They had never actually discussed what went on that night, but she definitely hadn't forgotten about it. How could she? It was only the sexiest, most romantic thing that had ever happened to her in her entire 20 years on earth and it was a daily struggle not to grab him and kiss him again. This level of sexual tension was _far_ from funny.

He leans his head back and she cringes at the sound of his skull hitting the wall, probably with more force than he intended. "You _knew_ that I was- I thought we were on the same page. You said you had thought about it, about us, before."

"Because I had. Look, I meant everything I told you then. That if things were different, maybe there could've been something between us-"

"Will you stop? The game's over, your bullshit doesn't work on me anymore," he says, grabbing at the hair on the crown of his head in frustration. "I get it, that this is how you operate. I'm sure you told _him_ the same fucking thing."

"I didn't! What happened with Brian, it was a mistake."

"That's what you said to me too!"

"Well, guess what? People can make more than one kind of mistake!" she shouts, throwing her hands up in the air.

"And you just happen to make a lot of them. Isn't that right?" She tentatively shrugs one shoulder, her bottom lip starting to tremble uncontrollably, so he takes it upon himself to answer for her. "I don't think so. I think you know exactly what you're doing. You like fucking with people's heads. That night, I just happened to be around. Yesterday it was Brian. It doesn't matter to you who it is, as long as you think you can get away with it."

"I get it, I shouldn't have done that with Brian. Yes, I was kinda using him and I know I need to tell him it has to stop. But with you, I would never-"

"Shut up, okay? Just shut the hell up. I don't want to hear it."

"It was different, it was-"

"Jesus Christ, do you not listen?" he shouts. "I bet you loved that, thinking I had some sort of feelings for you. Total fucking ego trip. Then you force us all to hang out with your weirdo paranoid boyfriend, just in case anyone forgets that you're taken-"

"Oh, but it's okay for you to constantly have your girlfriend around?"

"Why do you care?"

"I _don't_ care!" she says quickly.

"It's not my fault that everyone likes her and no one liked Todd."

"Of course, we all love her," Stevie says, rolling her eyes. Sally and Lindsey had reconciled last winter after she returned from Colorado, and she had been an ever-present fixture at the Buckingham house since she had come home from her camp job a month ago. The obnoxious thing was, there really wasn't any good reason to dislike her (and oh, how Stevie had searched for something, anything). The best Stevie could come up with was that she looked a lot better in a bikini than she did, but that was true of pretty much every girl who had progressed past the junior high days of stuffing cotton balls in your bra. "But Todd's gone now, so you can stop obsessing over him."

"I am not obses- see? That's your problem. You think everything revolves around you. You've spent all summer hanging around here flirting with everyone because you want the attention-"

"How am I flirting? It's called being _friendly_ , it's-"

"It's not friendly when you fuck around with people for the hell of it, when you make them think that you ca- when you lie to them!"

"Goddamnit, I wasn't lying!" she shouts through her tears.

"You know what? I don't even give a shit anymore. Because you're a slut and you're selfish and you don't care about anyone else as long as you get what you want."

She takes one step back, then another, feeling like she's just had the wind knocked out of her. She wants to reply, wants to throw back an even more devastating retort. Something that will absolutely crush him into a million tiny pieces. But the words don't come, and she can't stay here and wait until the giant invisible hand clutching her windpipe releases her, so she scoops up her purse and rushes blindly toward the door.

"Ste- wait."

He doesn't try to stop her or block her path out of the house, just slumps down against the wall until he's sitting on the floor. She looks over at him, one arm hugging his knees, and he looks so small and so sad and so _broken_. His eyes are glassy and it shocks her because she's never seen a man cry before. Not her dad, not any of her boyfriends, not even her brother ever since he was nine years old and fell off his bike. _Did I really hurt him that much?_ , she thinks.

_Well, I'm hurt too. Guess that makes us even._

She leaves without closing the door behind her, just so he's sure to see her drive away. 


	6. Chapter 6

Stevie pulls up in front of the Buckingham's house for the second time that day, relieved when she didn't see any of their friends' cars parked nearby and hoping this meant he was alone.

She could hear her mother's voice in her head telling her to turn around and go back home ("Leave it be, Stephanie Lynn!"), but she wasn't done with him yet. She was angry with herself for the way she ran out like a coward, making him think he had really gotten to her, and she was determined to give him a piece of her mind. He didn't get to have the last word on this.

And she wouldn't dare admit it, not even to herself, but there was a part of her that couldn't stop thinking about the way he had looked at her like his heart was cracking in two as she left. He had been so cruel to her, and then suddenly he turned into this sad little boy. She wasn't about to apologize to him- she had nothing to apologize for!- but she needed to know which version of him was the truth.

"Blondie's back," she hears the old man next door say, glowering at her from behind his rose bush. As far as anyone could tell, he had two hobbies- gardening and complaining about his neighbors. "You gonna keep it down for once, or...?"

She was tempted to tell him to shut it, but instead she just bit her lip and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand before she knocked on the door. If she was going to do this, she needed to look unbothered, not like she was a breath away from falling apart.

It didn't work. Mrs. Buckingham takes one glance at her, with her puffy face and mascara-stained cheeks, and frowns in sympathy. "Oh, honey. Can I?"

Stevie nods weakly, stepping forward and letting the older woman embrace her. She hadn't even told her own mom about her breakup yet, the two of them still not on great terms after their argument about her grades, so she was craving some motherly affection.

"Whoever he is, he's not worth crying over," Mrs. Buckingham says, smiling when Stevie gave her a quizzical look. "Trust me. Whatever's going on, it'll work out for the best."

"I hope so," she says in a small voice.

"It will, sweetie." She pats Stevie's shoulder before letting her go. "Lindsey's in the garage if you want to go talk to him."

"He's...is anyone with him?" she asks, knowing that Sally usually walked over to his place instead of driving.

"No, he's by himself. And will you do me a favor? Tell him we're eating at seven and it would be nice if he actually joined us instead of shutting himself in there until he decides he's hungry at midnight. I'm not running a restaurant here."

She promises to pass the message along, sniffling and rubbing her eyes again as she heads toward the garage. Behind her, she can hear Lindsey's dad speaking softly to his wife. "Now, aren't you glad we only had boys?"

Lindsey was sitting in his usual chair, hunched over his guitar and playing a melody she didn't recognize. His hair had gotten longer over the summer, the curls messier, and she wanted so badly to run her fingers through them just once. If it had been one of the other guys, she wouldn't have been able to resist giving them a playful ruffle a long time ago. But it was different with him. Ever since that night last winter, they'd been careful to keep each other at a distance physically even as their friendship deepened. He wasn't the most affectionate guy to begin with, so it probably wasn't that difficult on his part, but she still noticed how he deliberately avoided standing too close to her or sitting beside her in the cramped backseat of the van. It seemed safer like that, although she wouldn't have bothered if she had known that they were just going to end up in this situation anyway.

She wasn't sure if he even noticed that she was there, so she let him finish and then counted to five in her head before saying anything. "Um. Hi."

"Hey," he says, not sounding surprised to see her.

"I just came to let you know that...you were right." Damnit. That came out sounding so much weaker than she had intended, even though the words were still dripping with sarcasm, and she suddenly doesn't know what the hell she was thinking coming over here. Maybe it wasn't too late to run away and leave him wondering if her brief visit had just been a figment of his imagination.

Unfortunately, this piques his interest enough for him to finally look up. His eyes are as bloodshot as hers- whether he's been crying or smoking, she's not sure. "Oh?"

"I went over to Brian's after I left. I wanted to talk to him, to tell him we couldn't...anyway," she says, leaving out the part when he opened the door and she decided that kissing him again was preferable to talking. "He thought I'd come by so that we could. You know. Have sex. And when I told him no, he flipped out."

He sets his guitar down abruptly, finally making eye contact with her. "The fuck? If he even laid a finger on you, then I swear to God, I will-"

"No, no, it wasn't like that," she quickly assures him. "He just. He called me a tease and said I'd been leading him on and...I told him, I never said I wanted a relationship with you! And I'm not going to have sex with someone I'm not serious about. That's just the way it is. If that makes me a bitch, too bad. But he's so pissed, I know he's going to tell everyone else and oh God, Javier's going to have my ass," she says, briefly covering her eyes with her hand, "so just. I figured you'd want a heads up. Try not to enjoy it too much."

"He's not going to tell anyone," Lindsey assures her, shaking his head.

"No, he is. You didn't see how mad he was."

"I said, he's not going to. Trust me. I will handle it."

"But I- you- why?" This was not the reaction she had anticipated, to put it mildly. The whole point of telling him ahead of time was so that maybe he could get his victory celebration out of the way and not act _too_ gleeful by the time she got taken down. If he was going to humiliate her again, she'd rather he do it in private.

"I'm not doing it for you," he warns her. "The band doesn't need extra drama, and Brian...he doesn't get to act all innocent like he thought it was true love. If he really cared about you, he wouldn't have let you make a move on him when you were upset because you'd just broken up with someone else. He saw an easy target and took advantage, and you don't do that shit to a friend. Not even if _you_ were the one who came on to him to begin with."

"You wouldn't have? If it was you?" she asks softly, head tilted to one side.

"What? No. I'm not that desperate to-"

"I wouldn't put you in that situation in the first place," she says before he can get wound up again. "No matter how drunk I was." He frowns at her skeptically and she gestures to an upturned milk crate next to his chair. "Can I sit?"

"I guess, whatever."

She sits down and tries to look him in the eyes, but he's fixated on the floor. "I know you probably won't believe me, but I wouldn't. Because you're not...Brian's a friend and that's it. There's no feelings there, not even after all this. But with you...I couldn't just mess around with you a couple times and then call it quits. I wouldn't _want_ to. I like you way too much for that, and it could never be just a casual thing between us. If I couldn't have everything with you, a real relationship and not just sneaking around or being friends who make out sometimes, then I don't want it."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asks after she falls silent for a moment.

"I'm not really sure," she admits, ducking her head and laughing even as teardrops splash onto her bare knees. He doesn't exactly deserve to hear her confessing her feelings for him right now, not after how he treated her, but she wants to tell him the truth while he seems willing to listen. And if it makes him feel guilty for accusing her of deliberately fucking with his head- _good!_ He _should_ feel guilty. "I'm just trying to get you to understand that...you think I don't care about you, but it's the exact opposite. I care way more than I probably should. I mean, you have a girlfriend, and I have- well, I guess now I have nobody."

"You never said why he d- why you two broke up."

She plays with a strand of hair that's fallen in front of her face, twirling it around her finger. "He asked me to marry him, actually. And I said no."

"Oh. Wow. That's...did you know he was gonna do that?"

"Yes and no. Ever since he got accepted to seminary for next winter, I had a feeling it was coming, but I just kept hoping something would change." She feels him watching her, but now she's the one looking away. "He shouldn't have been surprised. We'd had this conversation before, and I told him...I don't want to just pack up and move to the other side of the country. Everything I have is here. My family, my friends, the band- why should I have to give all that up for him?"

"You shouldn't. If the whole point is just to hide out from the draft, why can't he go to one of the places he got into that are nearby? It's not gonna make a difference."

"That's what I don't understand. I told him- if you do that, I can finish up school, I can keep performing- and it's like he doesn't care because he just wants to go to bumfuck New England. I asked him what I'm supposed to do while he's studying all day and I'm in a strange place where I don't know a soul, and he tells me that the other wives on campus get together to drink coffee and have play dates with their kids. I'm 20 years old!" she cries. "I'm not ready to sit at home with a baby. I'd be miserable."

"Jesus. I know you don't like other people criticizing him, Steph, but it's like he doesn't know _shit_ about you if he thought you'd go for that."

"He does know. He just doesn't give a fuck. He wants a nice little obedient wife who's going to sacrifice everything for him, and I can't do that, so he says there's no point in us staying together any more." She props her elbows up on her knees, palms cradling her forehead. "I can't keep talking about it, I'm sorry. It makes me feel like I'm gonna be sick. We were together for a year and a half, you know? He was my first...a lot of things. And I love him and I don't want to lose him, but he wants _everything_ and I'm...I don't love him enough for that. If I was sure that he's the one I want forever, I'd do anything for him, but I just don't feel that way. At least not right now, and he's not gonna wait."

"Maybe I'm talking out my ass here, but I'm pretty sure that if he really wanted _you_ forever, and not just a baby-making housewife, he'd be willing to compromise. And why the hell does he want kids anyway? I thought the world was already overpopulated."

"Right?" she says with a giggle. They trade smiles before she turns away shyly, still unsure where they stood. He had been disarmingly _nice_ so far, nothing like she expected, but that didn't mean she'd forgotten any of what had happened earlier.

"What'd your parents think about all this?"

"I haven't told them yet. We're not really on speaking terms," she explains. "I failed that math class, so I got a huge lecture about how I never take anything seriously and I'm not thinking about my future, and I swear to God, my mom must've been keeping a record of the amount of time I've spent this summer doing anything that _wasn't_ studying. I'm just so tired of being treated like a kid...so I'm laying low for this last week until I can move into the apartment with the girls. But I'm sure I'll talk to mom about it before then. She'll probably be glad. I mean, she liked Todd, but not _that_ much."

"Nobody liked him that much."

"Will you stop?" she says, about to elbow him in the side before she holds herself back. "I get it, none of you could stand him. And Mom would've never forgiven him, or me, if I dropped out of school for him."

"You're doing the right thing."

"It's just so sudden. I mean, we met and then a few hours later we're...dating, and then almost two years go by, and one second I have a boyfriend, and the next second I don't. I haven't been single since I was 18, and that didn't even last an entire semester. What do I do now?"

She starts sniffling softly again, palm covering her mouth, and he oh-so-hesitantly leans over and rests his arm across her shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye she can see his hand sticking straight out, fingers flexed as though he doesn't know what to do with them and he doesn't want to risk touching her too much. It's a sweet unexpected gesture and she smiles at him in gratitude. "You'll be okay, Stevie."

"I'm taking a break from relationships for a while, I know that much. I need the freedom to live my life and do whatever the hell I want without having to run it past some guy or worry that I'm not giving him enough attention or..." She stops and straightens up, Lindsey pulling his arm back like he'd touched a live wire. "I guess maybe that's what you meant when you said I was-"

He makes an angry groaning noise and she's about to turn on him when he shakes his head. "No, it's not you. It's me. Can we just...forget everything I said earlier? I don't know what I was thinking, or saying..."

"I don't know about that. You seemed pretty sure at the time."

"Yeah, but. I said too much. Things I shouldn't have."

She nods, arms now wrapped around herself. "You know you shouldn't have said it out loud, but that doesn't mean you weren't telling the truth. The truth about how you really feel, at least."

"It's not!" He stands up and starts walking back and forth aimlessly, hands shoved in his pockets and head tilted toward the ceiling. "I just...I saw you and him and I lost it and started saying shit."

"I don't know. I mean, you had quite a lot of time to think about it between that night and this afternoon. You couldn't have come up with something better to say in the meanwhile?"

"He was taking advantage of the situation. I don't like it."

"I'm sure you don't. But you specifically said _I_ was the one you were mad at, not him. So which is it?"

"It's not good for the band," he says, ignoring her question.

"That's not the only reason you're angry about it, though." He doesn't answer and just continues his circle around the garage. "Can you sit down? Or at least stand still? You're making me dizzy."

He stops walking and leans against the wall as far away from her as possible, fingers drumming against his thigh like he's wound too tightly to stop moving altogether. "Fine."

"Listen, I get what you're saying about the band. And I'm gonna let you guys all stick to the pact you made, even though I still think it's creepy- I'm not going to get myself into this situation again. It's too messy." Now that she'd been with the band for about a year, she was more certain than ever that this was what she wanted to do with her life. They had accomplished so much for a group of kids who couldn't even legally buy their own beer, and though she was still going through the motions with school to please her parents, she knew that she was just biding her time until her big break came. She had a feeling that it was just right around the corner, which meant that now it was more important than ever to keep her priorities in line. "But Linds...you have a girlfriend."

"Uh, yeah?" he answers, cocking his head like this might be a trick question.

"And it's not me." He looks even more confused, so she decides to keep talking and spare him the guessing game. "You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do. I just broke up with a guy who thought that he could dictate my entire future because we were dating, so I don't need that from my...you."

"Your 'me'?"

"Well, I mean...you're my friend. But you're also-" She thinks back to a few weeks ago, to a late afternoon when she was sunning herself on a towel in Lindsey's backyard and caught him watching her when he thought she was asleep. Not even watching as much as drinking her in, like he was trying to memorize every last tiny detail about her. It would have made her wildly uncomfortable had it been anyone else, but she just laid still and let him continue, hoping he wouldn't notice the way her breathing quickened or how she had to fight to suppress a shiver despite the summer heat.

Then their eyes met, and she looked straight into his blown pupils through the lenses of her dark-rimmed sunglasses. She expected him to turn away as soon as he knew he'd been caught, but he stayed still and unflinching, almost daring her to make the next move.

What that move would have been, she still doesn't know, because at that exact moment Sally's voice rang out from the other side of the fence. "Linds? Are you back here?"

Stevie all but flung herself into the pool while Lindsey grabbed his guitar and pulled it into his lap, pretending to be in deep concentration. The spell was broken. But when Stevie finally surfaced for air, she caught him watching her again over Sally's head, a slow smile spreading across his face when he saw her looking back.

"I'm...what?" Lindsey asks, abruptly pulling her from her thoughts.

She presses her lips together, exhaling slowly through her nose. "I don't know what to call it."

"Oh."

"It's like," she says, still a tiny bit flushed from her daydreaming, "we have...a connection. Right? We're friends, but it's. Different." His eyes widen as he nods, and she realizes that maybe this is what he was looking for all along. For that confirmation that she felt it too, whatever 'it' was, and that he had a place in her life other than just being that guy she made out with that one time. She understood- she would've been crushed if she caught him with some other girl right after he broke it off with Sally. The only thing was, she knew she would have no actual right to feel that way and she couldn't just go off insulting him because of her own petty jealousy. "But that doesn't mean you can get pissed at me for...you called me a slut, and that's not okay."

"I know. I fucked up," he mutters, once again very interested in the floor.

"It's not even true. I've had sex with one guy in my entire life. I was a virgin until I was almost 19." She sees him making a face at his shoes, like he doesn't know what to do with this information, so she tries to get back on track. "And listen, I've made mistakes. I get it. But do you really think that I've spent all this time secretly trying to mess with your head just for the hell of it? Because I'm not _that_ awful."

"Stevie..."

"I thought you knew me better than that. I thought we trusted each other."

"I did. We do."

"Then fucking act like it! My God," she sighs.

"I'm sorry," he says, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Really."

"Yeah, well. You should be." She shakes her head, trying to keep his earlier harsh words from echoing in her mind. Between him, her parents, Todd, and Brian, this has felt like the week to pile on Stevie. Only now, she doesn't have anyone who will let her hold onto them while they promise her that everything's going to be all right. For all her insistence that she's going to enjoy not having anyone to answer to, she can tell that the single life is also going to be quite the adjustment. "So. I'm done with...I'm steering clear of all of you for real this time. I learned my lesson. You don't have to worry about me screwing things up with the band any more than they already are."

"I meant what I said. I'll talk to Brian. No one else is gonna know, I promise."

She still isn't sure how he's going to accomplish this, but she decides she's probably better off like that. She just hopes Brian isn't too forthcoming about the details of their trysts, because it's obvious that Lindsey can't handle it and she really wants all of this mess to go away as soon as possible. "That's...thank you. Seriously."

"It's the least I can do, I guess."

"It kinda is," she agrees.

"I'm doing it for the sake of the band," he says, repeating what he had told her earlier. "But...not just for them." She's about to thank him when he continues. "Because. We're still friends. Right?"

"We are."

"And we're still...something else."

"Yeah. We are," she says, biting her bottom lip unconsciously. "We're-"

She's cut off by a rap on the garage door and Mrs. Buckingham's voice. "Lindsey? Dinner's in fifteen minutes."

"Okay, Mom." He sounds mildly annoyed, but Stevie thinks they're probably better off for the distraction. Safer, at least. "Do you, uh, do you wanna stay? I know she wouldn't mind."

"I should probably get home. I haven't been there much this week, and I still want to talk to my mom about everything with Todd." She may not have a boyfriend to console her anymore, but hearing her mother tell her she was doing the right thing would go even further to soothe her wounded heart.

"That's okay. But hey, before you go...I, ah, I got you something. I was going to give it to you when I came by the night I got back, but...anyway. Here," he says, thrusting a shopping bag into her hands.

"Can I open it?" she asks, and when he nods, she reaches into the bag and pulls out a straw hat with a brim that's practically bigger than the hat itself. It has a bright pink flamingo woven onto it and matching pink pom-poms dangling all the way around; the kind of thing locals hawk to unsuspecting tourists looking for something 'authentic'. "Oh my God. This is amazing."

"I saw it in the airport and thought that it _might_ be huge enough for you," he says, both of them laughing. The giant hat she often wore to keep her face from getting sunburned while hanging out poolside had become a running joke among their group, with many attempts being made to steal it and hide it away simply to get a rise out of her.

"It's perfect," she says, giggling as she plops it on top of her head. "But does Mexico even _have_ flamingos?"

"Beats the hell out of me! I didn't see any. The only animals I saw were some really fat raccoons eating the trash outside our hotel."

She wrinkles up her nose. "Lovely. But I still wanna hear all about it! And I need to tell _you_ everything else that happened here. I made a daily list so I wouldn't forget anything...are you busy before practice tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? Uh, Sally and I are supposed to..."

"Oh yeah, that's right," she says quickly, even though she has no idea what their plans actually were. "Maybe, I dunno, this weekend or something?"

"Yeah, she's gonna be gone from Friday until Monday so...you could come by whenever."

"Good. I will." She stands up and slings her bag over her shoulder, turning to leave when she hears Lindsey quietly saying her name. "Hmm?"

"I'm...I'm really glad you're not moving. I'm glad you're staying here."

"Yeah? So am I."

"And not...just because I wouldn't want you leaving the band," he stammers softly. "Not just because of that."

"I know. Me too." 


	7. Chapter 7

**_January 1970_ **

"Stevie. Can you _please_ turn that light off?"

Stevie turns her attention away from her notebook when she hears Lindsey's muffled voice and looks across the tiny motel room to see him lying face down on the other bed. It had been a long day for the two of them, beginning well before sunrise when they had shuffled sleepily into the van and headed out on an eight hour drive to a festival that Fritz was playing that evening. They had intended to drive back home once the show was over, but everyone sans Stevie was drunk or half-asleep or both, and they all valued their lives too much to let her get behind the wheel. Instead they checked into the only motel in town that had rooms available on such late notice, a place that looked like a glorified brothel but where the desk clerk still demanded to know whether Stevie was 'married to any of these guys here' before he would hand over the keys.

"Am I _what_?" she asked, balking at this greasy old man trying to protect her virtue. "Yeah, I'm married to all-"

Lindsey grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard to shut her up before she could finish her sentence. "She's my wife. Right, _honey_?"

"I don't see a ring," the man said as Stevie nods and gives him a tight lipped smile.

"We just eloped. And we're kinda on our honeymoon, y'know, so if we could move things along..."

The man clearly didn't buy Lindsey's explanation but he relented anyway, tossing the keys onto the desk for the new couple and their 'wedding party'. "The only rooms I got left have two doubles. Take it or leave it."

"Don't worry, I'm sure we can find another place to do it," Stevie announced, her level of irritation making her unusually bold, and she blushed as she left with the rest of the group while Bob loudly whistled the tune to Here Comes The Bride.

It wasn't the first time she and Lindsey had been overnight roommates, although it _was_ the first time she'd ever been grilled about her marital status. They'd been getting more out of town gigs over the last year, and Lindsey had always insisted on being the one to room with her before anyone else could have a chance to argue. At first she had been a little annoyed. She knew it was his way of trying to keep her and Brian from ending up alone together, and it pissed her off that he didn't trust her when she said nothing had happened between them after that disastrous summer fling. Once she got past that, though, she actually started to look forward to those nights despite Lindsey's overprotective behavior. They had started spending more and more time together with just the two of them since she had broken up with Todd. She was finally free to have boys over now that she lived in an off-campus apartment, so Lindsey would hang out with her there in between class and practices, and by the end of the semester he was there so often that her friend Annie had started calling him their fourth roommate.

But there was still something different about being alone in an unfamiliar room with him. They would get high and lie on their respective beds in the dark, doubled over laughing at each other's bad jokes and celebrity impressions, and then out of nowhere the conversation would turn serious. They told each other things that they would never share in the daylight, all about their fears and insecurities and secret hopes for the future. She talked about growing up as a virtual nomad, having to rely on herself because everyone else was just a temporary part of her life. He told her about feeling like he was always living in the shadow of his older brothers, being the one who never quite fit in.

She asked him once, during one of those late-night talks, if he thought he'd marry Sally someday.

"I mean...we've been going out for a while, so I kinda guess that's what we're supposed to do, right? Finish school and then get married."

She couldn't imagine anything worse than agreeing to be with someone forever because it's what you're 'supposed to do,' but she didn't tell him that. It wasn't her decision to make, no matter how much she thought he was worth more than settling for what was expected of him.

" _Stevie_ ," Lindsey groans again. "Come on. I'm so fuckin' tired and that light's right in my face."

"Gimme a second, I'm almost done."

"You said that five minutes ago. What are you even doing?"

"I'm finishing up a letter to Todd," she says, biting the cap of her pen as she deliberates about what else to add.

"Then turn out the lamp and go sit next to the window. You can write by moonlight. That'll be all romantic and shit."

"There's nothing romantic going on with me and him."

Lindsey snorts into the pillow under his face. "I dunno, you two looked pretty cozy when he came home for Christmas."

"And I told you, that doesn't mean anything," she says, giving him a 'what's it to you?' look. "I still care about him even if we broke up. We're not getting back together, but while he was around...we like each other's company. That's all."

"Uh huh. Got it. Are you done now?"

"Keep asking me and I'll start another page," she warns, signing her name with a heart and then snapping her notebook closed. Although it wouldn't appear that way to anyone who might have read their letters, Stevie was telling the truth when she said that she and Todd had no plans to reconcile. They had kept their distance from each other after their breakup until months later, when he had stopped by her apartment to tell her goodbye before he left town for good. She invited him in, they spent a couple of hours catching up and reminiscing, and despite her best intentions she ended up sleeping with him again for old times' sake. How could she not? She _did_ still care about him. They stayed in touch after that, writing back and forth to each other, and then last month he had returned to California for a visit and their relationship was temporarily rekindled. Emphasis on the 'temporarily'. And while Lindsey hadn't come right out and said it, she knew he wasn't happy about seeing them together again.

_"I'm not changing my mind, Linds," she'd promised. "You don't have to worry that I'm gonna run off with him."_

_"Whatever, it's your life," he had mumbled, doing a terrible job of acting like he didn't care._

_"Yeah. And my life is here."_

" _Stephanie_." She wrinkles up her nose at Lindsey's use of her given name. "Y'know, it'd probably make it cooler in here if it was dark. And you could stop hiding under the sheets."

"Oh no. It's not like it's going to be pitch black." She's flushed, and it's not just because the ancient steam radiator is turning their room into a virtual sauna. Upon finding that the lone window was jammed shut, Lindsey had just shrugged and stripped down to his boxers, but Stevie was not as relaxed about the situation.

"Turn around," she had commanded him from the other side of the bathroom wall. "I mean it, you can't be looking."

He let her know when he was in position and then she dashed from the bathroom to her bed, throwing the bedsheet over her lap to cover up her bare legs. "I've seen you wearing less than that. I don't get what the big deal is."

It was true that he had seen her plenty of times in a bikini, but swimming in broad daylight felt different somehow than being alone together when she was wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts that barely hid her panties from view.

"Okay, coast is clear." He had stayed lying face down since then, perhaps taking pity on her, although she's pretty sure he'd been sneaking a glance or two while she was writing.

She reaches over and switches off the light, waiting for him to notice. "Uh, you're welcome."

"Did you ever tell Todd about David?"

"No," she says, wondering why he suddenly wants to talk instead of sleeping. "It's none of his business."

"But you and David are still. Like. You...hang out."

"We do." She had vowed to stay single after she broke up with Todd, and so far she had kept her word. Being a free woman in college was surprisingly fun at first. She didn't have much time to seek out guys in between school and the band, but her roommate Estelle had an endless supply of dates and was always happy to fix her up with her newest beau's friends. Between them and the admirers she met at shows, she had no shortage of boys. She soon realized, though, that quantity definitely didn't equal quality. There were a lot of guys who were clearly just out for one thing, and she wasn't a girl who had sex on the first date (there was Todd, but in her mind that didn't count because they ended up becoming a couple). Others wanted someone who would agree to be exclusive right away, which was an even more distasteful idea to her than a one night stand was. Besides, most of them lost interest once they saw that she didn't have the time to cater to their every need. And if that didn't turn them off, then the fact that she spent most of her time surrounded by other boys would usually do the trick. She kinda couldn't blame them for that. Her bandmates and the crew guys loved giving whoever she was with a hard time- but not as much as they loved teasing her about her latest 'dude of the week'.

Lindsey always held back when the others were piling on her, though. He wouldn't tell them to stop, but he wouldn't join in either. She suspected he was probably just staying quiet until she was out of earshot because he didn't want a repeat of the fight they'd had after he'd caught her with Brian.

So for whatever reason, he kept his opinions to himself- until he found out about David. Stevie had run into her former high school boyfriend by chance several months prior and they had started covertly getting together soon afterward. For her, it was an ideal arrangement. He was very much in love with someone else, a girl whose strict immigrant parents forbid her from seeing him, so he wasn't looking for any sort of commitment from Stevie. They slept together and that was the extent of it.

Her roommates knew, of course, but she never told anyone else because she just didn't see the need to. And then a few weeks earlier, Lindsey stopped by her apartment unannounced one afternoon when she was expecting David later that evening. At first she didn't think it would be a problem. Lindsey would hang around for a few hours, and then he would go home and be none the wiser. But a few hours passed, and then another, and then another. Knowing he'd get suspicious if she flat out told him to leave, she tried making all sorts of subtle hints about how she needed to write a paper, or wash her hair, or take a nap. Each little verbal nudge seemed to fly right over his head until finally there was a knock at the door.

"Um. I'll. I should get going," Lindsey stammered as soon as he recognized her visitor, not making eye contact with anyone as he hurried out the door.

Stevie gave David an apologetic smile. "I forgot, I needed to tell him something about tomorrow- you can get yourself a drink or whatever and I'll be right back."

She chased after Lindsey, knocking on the driver's side window of his car as he was about to back out of the parking lot. "Linds...wait."

"Don't worry, it's cool. I'll see you tomorrow," he said once he rolled down the window. "'m sorry, I didn't. You never told me you guys were back together or whatever."

He didn't look angry, just a little sad, like he was disappointed to have been left out of something important in her life. "It's not like that, I promise. I'd tell you if I had a boyfriend. We're just hanging out."

"Yeah, okay," he says, not buying it. "I always stop by my ex's place to hang out at 10:30 at night."

"I'm serious. He has a girlfriend...well, kinda. It's complicated."

"So then what does he want with y- _oh_."

"It's not cheating," she insisted. "I wouldn't do that. And we're not getting back together. It's really not a big deal."

"You don't have to explain to me, it's alright. Just...it's cold, you should go back inside."

He never mentioned David after that. She could almost believe that she had imagined the whole conversation if not for the way that Lindsey had stopped showing up at her apartment without warning, and the way he would awkwardly shuffle his feet or look down at his hands when he asked if she 'had plans'.

"I just don't get it, that's all," he says.

"What don't you get?"

"These guys treat you like shit, and then you just let them...like nothing happened."

She frowns even though he can't see it. "That's not true."

"Yeah it is. You were so broken up about Todd for a long time, and-"

"We just wanted different things."

"Exactly. He didn't want to be with you, or else he'd have been willing to compromise," Lindsey says bluntly. "You told me yourself, he didn't want _you_. He wanted someone who would be his lapdog."

"Whatever, it doesn't matter. I won't see him again for at least a year anyway."

"And in the meantime you have David."

"I don't _have_ him, that's the whole point. Neither of us want a commitment and this way, we don't owe each other anything," she explains. "He calls me up, and if I'm busy I just say so, and I don't have to feel bad about it. I'm not his girlfriend, so I'm not rearranging my life for him."

"But what happens when you say no? Do you really think he sits at home by himself? He probably just calls the next girl on his list."

She doesn't reply, chewing on her thumbnail and thinking about how on the few occasions when she actually called him and not the other way around, he always had some sort of flimsy excuse as to why he couldn't come see her. "You wouldn't understand, okay? You have a girlfriend, you've been together forever...it's different when you don't have someone."

"Yeah, I do, but I only get to see her maybe once or twice a month. Still doesn't mean I'd cheat on her just because she's not around."

"It's not cheating-" she starts to argue, then stops. She doesn't doubt that it's tough sometimes, but at least he knows there's someone out there who loves him and they'll eventually be reunited. She doesn't have that to look forward to. And it's not that she's lonely, because she's not. Most of the time. She's got her friends, and she's got Lindsey, and she knows she could easily go out and find a random guy to come home with her if that's what she wanted. It's not what she wants, though. She wants the comfort of someone familiar who'll hold her when she's had a shit day, someone who she can at least pretend truly cares about her when they're in bed together, and for that her old high school boyfriend will suffice. Most of the time. "Just forget it. I don't wanna talk about this anymore."

"Listen, I'm not trying to...whatever," he says, hesitating. "But I know you, you're the kind of person who's always gonna forgive and see the good in everyone, and I think you're getting used."

"Got it. Now let's please talk about something else."

He falls silent for so long that she thinks he's asleep, but then suddenly he starts talking again. "I think I'm going to break up with Sally."

"What? Why?" Stevie asks, turning to look in his direction. They seemed happy enough when she had seen them together at Christmastime, although admittedly she was too focused on Todd to pay them much attention.

"I dunno. It's not that we're fighting or anything, but we...it's like we're going through the motions, y'know? We have such separate lives and I think we're only staying together cause we've gone out for so long."

"How do you think she'd take it?"

"Honestly? I think she'd be relieved."

"You don't think she's cheating, do you?" Stevie asks, because God help her if she is. It would be the reason to hate Sally that she's been looking for since 1968, and there's no way she could hold herself back from giving the other girl a piece of her mind.

"Nah," he says, and Stevie finds herself almost disappointed even though she's usually one to avoid fights. "I trust her. But I wouldn't break it off if I thought she'd get hurt...I'm pretty sure she wants it too and she won't say anything because she's worried about how _I'd_ take it."

Stevie nods slowly. The air in the room feels different now, heavier somehow, like she needs to go outside and put some space between them because they shouldn't be alone like this anymore. She can't think of anything to say, but the silence is making her uncomfortable and so she settles on a neutral observation. "You two have been together for a really long time."

"Yeah, we have. And I don't hate her, I don't dislike her, but we're different people. Like we just...drifted apart."

"Huh." Hearing him say that makes her sad for reasons she'd rather not admit to, and she really wishes she could just be by herself for a while until the feeling passes. But since she's not about to go sit in the parking lot of this trashy motel in the middle of the night, she tries to distract herself by focusing on something else that's been troubling her. "Linds?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think taking a break is really going to help us?" As fall had turned to winter, it had become more apparent by the day that the band was becoming hopelessly fractured. They were playing better than ever, ironically enough, but there was a thick layer of animosity just below the surface that had started to bubble up more and more often. When they saw that their next scheduled gig after this festival was three weeks away, they had agreed to take that time away from each other in the hope that being apart would do them all some good.

"You know what's funny?"

"No," she says, unsure if he actually heard her question.

"You said you wouldn't go out with me because it might fuck up the band...but the band's fucked up anyway." He snorts, amused with himself until he realizes the joke has fallen flat. "I...don't know why I said that. Sorry."

"I mean, you have a point," she admits, shrugging one shoulder. "But maybe I'm worrying too much. Maybe we'll all come back together in a few weeks and everything will have sorted itself out." When he doesn't say anything, she adds "...but you don't think it's going to, do you."

"Hey, I wish it would just as much as you do. I don't want to give this thing up- but you also gotta be realistic." He finally turns his head so he's looking at her, and she adjusts the blanket covering her lap just in case. "You shouldn't stress about it, though, you've got enough to worry about with school. And that's why we're going to keep working on our own stuff, right? Whatever happens, we have a backup plan. You and I, we'll be okay."

She wants to believe him. After getting into a fight with Javier, tired of him either dismissing the songs she was writing or just ignoring them altogether, Lindsey had tried to cheer her up by surprising her with a version of one of her songs that he had recorded by himself. She was so impressed with it that she gave him a few more newly written ones that she thought would work well for the two of them, and it had morphed into a full fledged project apart from the band. Whether anything would ever become of it, she didn't know, but she agreed with Lindsey that they wanted to keep working together even if the band fell apart. "And then what happens if that doesn't work?"

"Don't tell me you're bailing on me already," he says, sounding genuinely concerned.

"No! God, no. But I'm just saying...like, what if your dad makes you get a job at the plant now that you dropped out of school, and then that takes up all your time, and-"

"Stevie, woah," he says, cutting her off as her voice becomes more frantic. "For one thing, that's not gonna happen, cause he'd never let me work there unless I got a haircut. But even if it did...dude, any band in this state would jump on the chance to get you to join. You're a hot commodity, you could have your pick. Or hell, you could easily get solo gigs. Everyone knows you now."

"That's not what I'm...never mind. Maybe we should get some sleep. It's getting late."

"No, wait. What is it?"

"It's stupid, don't worry," she says, hoping he can't see her rubbing delicately at the corner of one eye with her index finger.

"You can't just stop in the middle of a conversation and say goodnight."

"I can do whatever I want," she retorts. But her curiosity gets the better of her, so she swallows hard and asks "I meant, about us. What happens to us if it doesn't work out?"

"What do you mean? We'd still be friends, we'd still hang out."

"Would we really?"

"Course. How often do we hang out now when it has nothing to do with the band? All the time."

He was right about that, but somehow he just made it worse. "Yeah, _now_. But things change. Look at you and Sally."

"But that's different, me and her."

"Why?"

"Because it just is- hey. Are you crying?"

"No," she lies.

"Yeah you are...did I say something?" She doesn't answer, turning her head away from him very slowly and hoping he won't notice. "Steph. Don't make me come over there."

"No! Stay in your own bed."

"Then tell me what's wrong."

"I said it's stupid," she insists, biting her lip as she clutches at her pillow like a shield. "You know I get emotional when I drink."

"You had one beer four hours ago."

She rolls her eyes, waiting a few beats before giving in. "If you break up with Sally, you're going to get another girlfriend and then you'll be spending all your time with her."

"That's not- I don't _want_ another girlfriend."

"So you're going to be a monk for the rest of your life? Be real, Lindsey."

"You know, you're not being fair," he complains. "You're the one who's said over and over that there can't be anything between us, but now you're crying because you don't want me with someone else." He pauses, his voice softening. "Seriously. What's going on?"

"Do you love me? Like, you're _in_ love with me."

"Are you in love with _me_?"

"What the hell, I asked first. You can't answer a question with another question."

He huffs, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Why do you want to know?"

"Lindsey! Goddamnit, I'm not playing games here," she says, cursing herself under her breath as more tears splash onto her cheeks.

He doesn't say anything as a minute ticks by on the old bedside clock. She doesn't prompt him again, because she's not going to beg and plead. That's not who she is. And she knows that it seems like a lot to ask for a declaration of love from someone you're not dating, who you've kissed a grand total of once, but they know each other well enough that she thinks he should be sure of how he feels by now.

After all, she certainly is.

"I. Yeah," he finally says, voice barely more than a whisper. "Since a long time ago."

She exhales slowly, breath catching in her throat. "Linds-"

"No, you don't have to say- I get it. You've told me enough times that it's not going to happen, so I'm not expecting anything. But I wasn't gonna lie to you."

"That's not what I said. We had the band to think about, we had other people..." And maybe that's what was making this suddenly feel so urgent. It wasn't the first time that she had shed tears at the thought of them growing apart, of never becoming something more than what they were now, but she always told herself there was really nothing she could do as long as there was someone else in the picture. Sally had been in his life since before they met, and she had to accept that. But the idea of someone new coming in and taking him away from her, especially with the band in its current fragile state, was something she couldn't bear. "Things are different now."

"You said you didn't want a commitment," he reminds her in a mumble.

"That was a long time ago-"

"You said it just now, when we were talking about David!"

"Well no, I don't want to commit to _him_ ," she says. "But I...ugh. Do you remember what I told you back when we had that fight about Brian?"

"That you didn't want another relationship. You didn't want to be tied down to someone."

_Are you purposely making this difficult?_ , she wants to scream. "Well, yeah. I did say that because Todd wanted way more from me than I was willing to give. But I didn't love him the way I...I told you, if I was sure he was what I wanted, I'd do anything for him."

"'The way you'...what?" When she hesitates, he presses on. "I answered your question, now you've gotta answer mine. C'mon."

She hears the bed creaking like he's about to stand up, and she waves her hand at him as a warning to stay where he is. "Remember what else I said to you then? That I liked you too much for us to ever just be something casual. Because I knew that...I wanted us to be everything to each other. And that scared the hell out of me. It still does, a little, but- things have changed. I've changed. Maybe I'm ready for that now."

"Only maybe? Because if you're not sure..."

"I'm sure," she says hurriedly.

"I'm not sharing you with anyone else."

She laughs through her tears, sitting up against the headboard. "What part of 'everything' don't you understand? Besides, you're the one with the girlfriend here, and I don't even know that you're for sure breaking up with her. I could be telling you all this shit just for you to stay with her and-"

"I'm not going to. I promise. It's you or nobody...Stevie, can I please come over there?"

"You may not," she says primly, trying to stay strong even though her resolve is crumbling rapidly.

"Steph. I don't know what else to- I love you, okay? You're the only one I want."

"I. I love you too."

"Then why do you keep moving further away from me?" he asks, gesturing toward how she's huddled at the far corner of the bed.

"Because you still have a girlfriend, and I...even if you're going to break it off, you shouldn't cheat on her. I don't wanna be that person. But I don't trust myself."

"Really," he says, smirking as he runs a hand through his messy hair. "So you wouldn't be able to control yourself if you were sitting next to me."

She ignores his teasing, trying to change the subject to safer territory. "You don't...we're not going to say anything to the guys, are we?"

"What's there to tell? That you can't be alone in the same room with me and not want to-"

"Lindsey!"

He laughs a little too loudly, and she knows that means he's as full of nervous energy as she is. "Fine. No, I'm not telling them shit, at least not for now. But come on, are you seriously gonna stay over there all night?"

"I don't know." When he sighs, she shakes her head. "I'm trying to do the right thing here, okay? It's not that I don't want to..."

"Yeah, I know, we shouldn't," he concedes glumly. "So I guess we're just gonna- what, go to sleep?"

It's what they _should_ do. But she's been holding herself back for years, and she's tired of waiting, and if she can't even make eye contact with him now for fear of giving into temptation, then how the hell can she expect herself to sleep when he's only a few feet away? "Nobody else has to know, right? I mean, if we...whatever happens here."

"Nobody but us."

"And you're really going to break up with her."

"I am. As soon as we get back."

Stevie takes a deep breath and nods, psyching herself up, and then she practically leaps across the space between their beds. She's not even sure if her feet touched the ground before she's pushing him down to the mattress, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him to punctuate every word. "I love you. God, I love you so much."


	8. Chapter 8

Stevie takes a deep breath and nods, psyching herself up, and then she practically leaps across the space between their beds. She's not even sure if her feet touched the ground before she's pushing him down to the mattress, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him to punctuate every word. "I love you. God, I love you so much."

"Huh," he says, momentarily overwhelmed. "I mean. I love you too." The two of them both start laughing, giddy and lightheaded at the thought that yes, we're really going to do this. She pulls back a few inches to study his expression, thumb tracing his bottom lip. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I've just never gotten to look at you up close like this before."

"And?" he asks, frowning in slight discomfort.

"You're pretty cute."

He laughs again, gently rolling them over so that he's on top of her as they start kissing in earnest. She runs her hands over his back, his bare skin as warm to the touch as his tongue is when it collides with hers. He was an excellent kisser, she never forgot that about him, and it seems like he's only improved with age. She sighs eagerly into his mouth, both of them breathing each other in until he breaks the kiss and attaches his lips firmly to her neck. The stubble on his chin is scratchy and she knows she's going to have a hell of a time trying to cover that up in the morning, but it feels too good to tell him to stop.

"I want. I mean. Can I." He sits up, looking adorably flustered as he glances down at the t-shirt that's now hiked up around her waist.

She leans into him, chin resting on his shoulder so she can whisper into his ear. "I'm all yours now, baby. You can have _everything_."

With that, she lifts her arms up slightly so he can pull the shirt off over her head. He tosses it somewhere behind them, never taking his eyes off of the bare skin that's newly exposed to him.

"Ohh. You're...wow," he mumbles almost to himself before nudging her to lie back down. She rakes a hand through his curls as he kisses all over one breast and then the other, tongue trailing over the soft skin, and she gasps in approval as he licks at her nipples.

"God. Linds." His initial hesitation seemingly forgotten, he takes one hardened pink bud into his mouth and swirls the tip of his tongue around it. When he reaches over and gently squeezes her other breast, her nipple rubbing against his palm, she shifts so that one of her bare legs is now wedged between his. Her back arches toward him as she grinds her hips against him, holding his head firmly in place as he sucks more of her breast into his warm mouth. "That's...ahh. That's so good."

She's never gotten off just from someone sucking on her tits before, but she's beginning to think it might be possible. Even though she's intrigued by the possibility, she's not disappointed when he moves to pull her underwear down, getting them past her knees before he looks up at her somewhat guiltily. "I'm sorry, I just. I really wanna touch you."

"If I'm going to be naked, what about you?" she teases, which is all the encouragement he needs to strip off his boxers. When she looks down at him, her eyes widen as it becomes her turn to silently mouth 'wow'. He laughs and she ducks her head, biting her lip to keep from laughing too. "Shut up."

"Hey, I'm not complaining," he says, looking way too smug for his own good. She could tell by the feel of him pressed up against her leg that he was bigger than the guys she'd been with before, but wasn't quite expecting _that_. "Don't worry," he adds, still smirking proudly, "I'll take it easy on you. I'll only put it in halfway if you want."

"Oh my God, I said shut up!" She keeps giggling until he silences her with another kiss, turning onto his side to face her. He moves his hand down in between their bodies, placing it in between her legs, and she immediately hitches her thigh over his to give him better access.

"Fuck. You're so..." He slides one finger up and down her center as he kisses the corner of her mouth softly, his thumb circling her already swollen clit. "You like that, angel?"

She swallows hard and nods, wrapping her small hand around his erection, and his hips jerk forward when she starts stroking him slowly. In return, he slips a finger inside her as his tongue gains entrance to her mouth once again.

He starts groaning loudly as she touches him and the sound urges her on. It's what she's wanted since the night of their first kiss, both of them exploring each other freely while the rest of the world fades away. She doesn't notice the lumpy mattress, or the clanking radiator, or the odor of stale smoke that permeates the air around them. All she's aware of right now is how his his hand and tongue are moving together in unison, how his fingers curl and flex inside her and the noises he makes when her thumb brushes over the head of his cock.

"Shit. _Steph_. I. Lemme go down on you," he says breathlessly, pupils blown as he looks to her for permission.

"You...really? You want to?"

His eyes flick downward, biting his lip. "Is that weird? I dunno."

"No, no." For the other guys she'd been with, it was obvious that they were doing it because they wanted head in return. Maybe occasionally they were doing it to make her happy. But Lindsey...from the way his dick twitched in her hand when he said the words, she could tell that just the idea was making him more aroused than he already was. She gives him another little squeeze before reluctantly letting go, lying down on her back. "I want it too, trust me."

One corner of his mouth quirks up in relief. "Y'know how long I've been wondering what you taste like?"

"Then you should find out," she says, her voice equal parts shy and seductive as she spreads her legs open to invite him in closer.

He doesn't hesitate, placing open mouthed kisses all over her pussy and eagerly lapping up the wetness there. She's almost embarrassed by how turned on she is at this point but he clearly loves it, his tongue searching for every last drop inside her, and she lifts her legs up to let her calves rest on his shoulders. He keeps licking her in long strokes, tongue swirling around her clit and then plunging back into her until she's yanking on his hair to get his attention.

"Linds. Lindsey! You gotta stop, I'm gonna..." He finally pauses what he's doing and looks up at her in a daze, the bottom half of his face covered in her arousal. "I'm gonna," she repeats, "and I want us to. You know. Together."

He nods, giving her one last kiss before he sits up in between her legs. "Shit, do we need-"

"I'm on the pill," she says, shaking her head, but then her eyes narrow. "You actually brought some with you?"

"No! Why would I?"

"I was going to say," she giggles. "Because I don't know if I'd like that."

"I definitely wasn't planning on...this. I thought I was going to have to go down the hall and ask the others." He scratches his head, laughing along with her. "And I guess that would kinda blow the whole 'not telling anyone about us' thing."

Stevie is also relieved, not just because their secret will remain safe, but because there's no way in hell she would trust him to pull out in time. And besides, that's not what she wants. She wants all of him that she can get. "Okay baby," she says, not surprised by how easily the term of endearment rolls off of her tongue. "Lie down."

He does as told and she throws one leg over him, straddling his thighs. She had never been on top for the first time she'd had sex with someone before. She'd always let the guy she was with be in control, but this is a new start for her and she wants to show him that she can take charge- not that she figured he would mind.

"Are you okay?" he asks, the slight trembling in her hands betraying the nervousness she was trying to conceal. "You're shaking."

She looks down, only to see that she wasn't alone. "So're you."

They trade tentative smiles as she laces their fingers together, kissing his hand before she gradually lowers herself down onto his cock. The advantage of this position was that she could take it slowly to give herself time to adjust to his size, but she also enjoyed being able to torment him a little, and she could tell by the way his eyes were focused on the place where their bodies were joined that he was enjoying it too.

She's wet enough that she was able to take him in easily, but she can still feel a bit of a burn as her muscles stretch to accommodate him. She starts rolling her hips back and forth slowly to relieve the ache and he trails a hand over her thigh. "God, Steph. You feel so fuckin' good."

"I'm just getting started," she says, tossing her hair back behind her shoulder before she leans down to brace herself by resting her palms on his chest. His hands instantly go back to playing with her breasts, rolling her nipples between her fingers as she starts moving up and down on his dick.

He lets her control the pace at first, but as her breathing gets heavier and her sighs get louder, he reluctantly lets go of her tits and grabs onto her hips to help her out. "That's it, babe. Keep going."

"No," she says, letting out a little squeal every time she bounces against his pelvic bone. "Fuck me."

"What? I...shit. I couldn't hear you," he teases as his thumb flicks her clit.

"I _said_ , fuck me."

"That's so hot hearing you say that," he growls, flipping them over and crashing his mouth against hers again as he thrusts into her urgently. She digs her heels into his ass and squeezes his cock with her inner muscles as tightly as she can, desperate to feel every inch of him.

He's fighting to hold himself back, she can tell, grunting into her ear as he rubs her clit. "Linds. It's okay, I want you to."

"No," he says, face buried in the crook of her neck. "Not until-"

But she's already figured out his weakness. "Do it for me, baby. Show me how good I feel."

" _Stevie_ , fuck!" He bites down on the soft skin of her shoulder as he lets himself release inside her, working her clit furiously through it until she's thrashing around underneath him.

She's come during sex before, obviously, but not like this. Not like her whole body's being rocked by wave after wave rolling through her. "Oh _God_. Oh my God. Lindsey..."

For a long moment they're both stunned, holding onto each other as they struggle to regain consciousness. Then Lindsey finally lifts his head to look at her and she can't hold back her delighted laughter any longer. "What the- are you okay?"

"We are _really, really_ good at that!" she blurts out brightly.

"Did you think we wouldn't be?"

She shakes her head, eyes wide. "I _knew_ we would. But...holy shit."

"You're amazing," he says, kissing the middle of her forehead as he carefully pulls out. "I love you."

He spoons her from behind, wrapping his arms around her middle, and she rests her hands on top of his. "I love you too."

"And I'm not changing my mind." She wonders how he does that, how he seems to always know the things that she's thinking about but are too afraid to say out loud. "You're it for me, angel."

"Y'know, if you're really my boyfriend now, you're gonna have to come over sometime so we can talk to my parents."

"Uh, I do?"

"Don't worry," she reassures him, hearing the anxiety in his voice. "They already like you, so it's not a big deal. But it'll make them happy if we do it together in person instead of me just telling them over the phone or something. You know they're old fashioned like that."

"But then what happens if they say 'no, stay away from our daughter'?"

She laughs, turning around in his arms to face him. "It's a little too late now, isn't it? Besides, they know telling me I can't do something is just going to backfire."

"Okay, if you're sure."

"I'm positive. And then I guess I should tell my roommates, because they'll figure it out soon enough."

"Do we have to? I mean, I'm kinda over at your place all the time anyway."

"They'll keep their mouths shut, I promise," she says. "But I mean, they're going to start suspecting things if you're spending the night..."

He grins, face lighting up like he's just won the jackpot. "You want me to spend the night, huh?"

"Of course I do. Unless it would get you in trouble with your folks," she says, tilting her head upward to kiss him again. "I don't want them to think I'm a bad influence on their little boy, after all."

They keep trading slow, lazy kisses, both of them still flushed and sweaty from their previous exertions. It doesn't stay like that for long, though, especially after she starts scraping her nails lightly over his chest and stomach. "Ohh. Baby."

"Already?" she asks when she notices he's half-hard again, loving the effect she's having on him.

He huffs, pretending to be put out. "I've kinda been waiting a really long time for this."

"Then we better make it worth it, hmm?" She sits up, making sure he has a full view of her ass as she turns around and settles in between his legs. It only takes a few strokes of her hand before he's fully hard and she looks at him meaningfully, tongue darting out across her bottom lip. "You ready?"

Perhaps sensing her slight apprehension, he puts his hand on her knee and squeezes it reassuringly. "You don't have to, y'know. I mean, I didn't do it just so you would..."

"No, no, I want to," she says, and she's telling him the truth. "I just. I know what you think about me, but honestly I haven't done this all that much and I might not even be very good at it, I don't know."

"I...wait. What do you mean, 'what I think of you'?"

"C'mon, Lindsey, it's not exactly a secret. You called me a slut right to my face, remember?"

He groans, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I wasn't saying that you were- I was pissed off and I shouldn't have said that. I told you I was sorry."

"You did," she says quietly. "But that doesn't mean I just forgot all about it."

"So what does it matter anymore, babe? You know I love you. And honestly...whatever you did, whoever you were with before, I don't give a fuck. The only thing I care about from now on is us."

She turns so that she's not facing him, hugging her knees to her chest protectively. "You don't get it."

"What am I missing?"

"You know what that sounds like to me?" She's trying not to get angry, because she knows he's not intending to hurt her, but like all boys he could be so clueless sometimes. "It sounds like you're saying that I'm a slut, but you'll forgive me for it."

"How did you...that's not what I'm saying. Where did that even come from?"

"'Whoever I was with before'? I've had sex with two people, okay, and that's it. I know you and the other guys joke about me being easy, but-"

"Woah. That's all Brian's deal, leave me out of it. And I've told him to knock it off, so."

She tilts her head to look at him, quietly disbelieving. "But you've never had any part of it."

"Well. I mean. If I was joking about anyone, it was the guys you were hanging out with. Not you."

"Yet I've always been nice to the sleazy girls crawling around you four!"

"Okay, that's not fair. You _know_ I've never even touched any of them." He had a point there, he wasn't a cheater, but she was still annoyed by the girls who were falling all over themselves to get his attention after the shows. He coughed nervously once, twice. "I guess, maybe I've been kinda jealous before, seeing you with someone else. I dunno."

" _Kinda_?"

"Fine, maybe I was!"

" _Maybe_?"

"Alright, alright, I was. But just cause I didn't think they were good enough for you." She looks unconvinced, so he changes strategy. "Can you honestly say you've never been jealous of Sally?"

"What? No!" she squeaks in a high pitched voice before dropping back down to her usual tone. "And if I was, it's only because you were purposely trying to make me jealous. You're really not so slick, you know."

He shrugs, looking sheepish, and when she turns away again he hesitantly rests his fingers on her bare back. "I'm sorry for what I said. I guess I didn't know it still bothered you."

"Not really," she lies.

"I'd understand if it did. I was an asshole." She nods in agreement, but nevertheless she lets him put his arm around her and pull her back against his chest. "And I believe you. Swear to God I do."

This gets her to look over her shoulder at him again. "Promise?"

"Yup. But I meant what I said, too, that I don't give a fuck about anyone else. You're my everything, remember?"

"I seem to remember you saying that, yes." She turns around, climbing into his lap and resting her chin on his shoulder. "I love you, even if you're a jerk sometimes. You're my jerk now."

It wasn't long until she was back in the same position in between his legs, biting down on her bottom lip a bit apprehensively. She was telling the truth before when she said she wasn't very experienced in this area. Her mother had warned her before she went off to college that boys would try to convince her to go down on them at any opportunity, but that it was dirty and if you gave in, they'd start expecting it constantly. She felt like this was perhaps more insight into her parents' sex life than she wanted, but she (somewhat) took her mom's advice to heart. She'd only ever done it after she'd already slept with a guy several times, and only as often as she had to in order to get them to do the same for her in return. By then, they were so impatient that she didn't think they really cared if she was terrible at it or not. But she wants to do this for Lindsey, and she wants it to be good for him, and she's nervous about being compared to a girl who'd had years to figure out what he liked.

She takes a deep breath before leaning over and licking a long stripe along the underside of his cock. He groans in approval and she repeats the motion, licking him again before kissing wetly up and down his shaft. She'd been working him with her hand for a few minutes before switching to using her mouth, so he was already leaking by the time she looks up at him, making sure he's watching, then sucks the head in between her lips and swirls her tongue around it.

"Oh _fuck_ ," he swears, his fingers tangled loosely in her hair. She starts humming to herself, moaning around his dick as she takes him in as far as she can. Even though it isn't quite all the way, he doesn't seem to mind when she wraps her hand around the base before she starts moving her head up and down, especially not when she's playing with his balls with the other hand. She lets her hair fall in her face so that the long strands are brushing over his skin as she gradually relaxes, letting the tip of his cock hit the roof of her mouth and then pulling back slightly to flick her tongue over him. "You...I'm gonna..."

She nods and releases him from her mouth with a loud pop, sitting up and motioning for him to do the same. In one swift movement she's straddling his thighs, rubbing her dripping wet center against him. "See how much I want you?"

That's enough to send him over the edge, hips jerking frantically as he comes all over both of them. He pushes her onto her back before she has a chance to react and takes one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking hard while he easily slides two fingers back inside her. She barely has a chance to absorb what's happening before she's overtaken by another orgasm, and she hisses his name loudly while her fingers tug at his hair. " _Lindsey!_ "

They lie there together in silence for a few moments, Lindsey's head resting in between her breasts, until she softly asks him to move.

"Shit, sorry, was I hurting you?" She shakes her head and smiles playfully, nudging him to lean back and then lapping up the remnants of his release off of his stomach. "Fuck. You're so good, angel."

"I guess you're not bad yourself, Buckingham." She snuggles up to him, her little palm flat on his chest. "Hey Linds?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you really think we'll be able to keep everything a secret? I mean, if the rest of the guys didn't already hear you all the way down the hall, because I think they might have. I think the whole building might have, actually," she says, visibly pleased with herself.

" _I_ can keep a secret, yeah, but I'm more worried about you."

"Me?!"

"You're awful chatty sometimes. Especially when you're high," he says.

"No one's going to hear a word from me! They've never found out that we're spending so much time together without them, right? So it won't be any different now. We're not telling them we're working on our own stuff...and that we're having sex," she adds with a wide eyed whisper.

He chuckles softly, fingers running over the crown of her head. "And that too."

"Sooo," she says, lifting her head up from where it's been resting on his chest. "I'm going to get showered, are you coming with me?" She was loathe to get up while they were cuddled together like this, but she was covered in sweat (among other things) and there was no way she'd be able to sleep in this condition. "And then we can use my bed because...yeah."

"Guess it's good we have two of 'em," he says, eyeing the rumpled sheets around them.

She gets up and reaches for his hand to lead him into the bathroom, tilting her head when he hesitates. "What's wrong? You're not going to let me be in there all by myself, are you?"

"No, no way. I was just thinkin'...it's funny because a couple hours ago you were freaking out cause you didn't want me looking at your legs, and now..."

She crinkles up her nose as she laughs, shrugging. "I guess things change." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **the end...** thank you so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! More to come soon...


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